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A    HISTORY 


OF 


GERMAN     LITERATURE 

BY 

W.    SCHERER 

TRANSLATED   FROM    THE    THIRD    GERMAN   EDITION 

BY 

MRS.  F.  C.  CONYBEARE 

EDITED   BY 

F.   MAX    MULLER 

VOLUME    I. 
NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1908 


15  U>O/ 

,(  INTRODUCTION. 


THIS  work  is  a  history  of  German  literature  from  the  earliest 
times  to  the  death  of  Goethe. 

The  first  chapter  traces  the  roots  of  German  nationality  back  to 
the  period  preceding  the  Aryan  separation,  and  presents  a  picture 
of  the  intellectual  condition  of  our  forefathers  at  the  time  when 
they  became  known  to  the  Romans. 

The  second  chapter  treats  of  the  rise  and  development  of  the 
German  hero-legends  in  the  epoch  of  the  migrations,  and  during 
the  Merovingian  period. 

The  third  chapter  is  devoted  to  the  Mediaeval  Renaissance,  under 
the  rule  of  the  Carlovingians  and  the  Ottos,  the  so-called  Old  High- 
German  period,  the  chief  literary  achievements  of  which  consisted 
in  prose  and  verse  translations  from  the  Bible,  in  short  political 
songs  and  poetic  tales,  and  in  the  Latin  dramas  of  the  nun 
Rosvitha. 

The  fourth  to  the  seventh  chapters  embrace  the  classical  period  of 
Middle  High-German  lyric  and  epic  poetry,  extending  from  about 
the  eleventh  to  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

The  eighth  and  ninth  chapters  include  the  next  three  hundred 
years,  the  period  of  transition  from  Middle  High-German  to  New 
High-German.  To  this  epoch  belongs  Luther's  translation  of  the 
Bible  ;  the  poetry  of  the  period  inclined  to  the  drama,  but  no  great 
literary  masterpiece  was  produced. 

The  tenth  to  the  thirteenth  chapters  are  devoted  to  the  unfinished 
epoch  in  which  we  live,  the  New  High-German  period  which  began 
with  the  close  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  Its  strength  lies  in  lyric 
and  epic  poetry;  and,  in  tracing  its  development  from  Paul  Gerhardt 
to  Goethe,  I  have  given  more  space  to  it  than  to  the  earlier 
centuries. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.  L 


CHAPTER  I. 

PACK 

The  Ancient  Germans i 

Pytheas  of  Massilia,  i.     Julius  Caesar,  i.     Tacitus,  2. 

The  Aryans  3 

Primitive  poetry  and  its  various  forms,  5.    Rhythm  and  metre,  5. 

Germanic  religion 6 

Three  epochs,  6.    Proper  names,  8.    Siegfried,  9. 

Oldest  remains  of  Poetry 10 

Wessobrunner  Gebet,  10.  Alliteration,  10.  Choral  songs,  n. 
Lyrics  and  riddles,  12.  Merseburg  charms,  13.  Poetical  elements  in 
primitive  law,  14. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Goths  and  Franks 16 

Three  classical  periods  of  German  literature,  16. 

The  Heroic  Songs 19 

The  German  Migration,  20.  Historical  elements  in  the  heroic 
songs,  21.  Types  of  character,  23.  Poets  at  the  Court  of  Attila,  24. 
Song  of  Hildebrand,  25. 

TJlfilas  .        .         .        .        .        . 28 

Gothic  Christianity,  28.  Gothic  Bible,  30.  Other  Gothic  frag- 
ments, 31. 

The  Merovingian  Empire  .        *        .        .        .        .        .        .     32 

Christianising  of  German  Tribes,  32.  The  Irish,  33.  Rhyme,  34. 
Old  High  German,  36.  Charlemagne,  36. 


viii  Contents. 


CHAPTER  III. 

PAGE 
The  Old  High-German  Period 38 

The  Anglo-Saxons,  38.     Charlemagne,  39.     Muspilli,  40. 

The  First  Messianic  Poems        ... 40 

Fulda,  41.    •  The  Heljand,'  42.     Otfried's  Gospels,  44. 

The  Mediaeval  Renaissance 46 

Court  of  Charlemagne,  47.  St.  Gall,  48.  '  Waltharius,'  49.  Notker,  51. 
Roswitha,  51.  The  Ottos,  51. 

The  "Wandering  Journalists 53 

The  Gleemen,  54.  Ludwigslied,  54.  Historical  poems,  55.  Otto  the 
Great,  56.  Herzog  Ernst,  57.  Latin  and  Latin-German  poems,  57. 
Song  of  St.  George,  57. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Chivalry  and  the  Church 60 

French  influence,  60.     Northmen,  60.     Chivalry,  61. 

Latin  Literature 62 

'Rndlieb,'  62.  Otto  von  Freising,  66.  The  Goliards,  67.  The 
Arch-poet,  68.  Drama  of  Antichrist,  70. 

Lady  "World 71 

Hostility  of  the  clergy  to  chivalry,  73.  Sermons,  74.  Religious  epics 
74.  The  nun  (inc/usa)Ava.,  75.  Heinrich  von  Molk,  76.  Triumph  of 
the  secular  spirit,  77.  Poetic  Fragment,  '  Comfort  in  despair,'  78. 

The  Crusades 79 

Pilgrimage  of  1064.  Ezzo's  Song,  80.  Williram,  81.  Solomon  and 
Morold,8i.  Konrad's Rolandslied,  82.  Lamprecht's  Alexanderlied, 83. 
Shorter  epics,  84.  '  Konig  Rother,'  85.  '  Herzog  Ernst,'  85.  '  St. 
Brandon,'  86.  '  Orendel,'  87.  <  St.  Oswald,'  87.  '  Count  Rudolf,'  88. 
Frederick  II,  90. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics 92 

Literary  influence  of  the  various  districts  of  Germany,  92.  The  Hero 
legends  in  Saxony,  93. 

The  Hevival  of  the  Heroic  Poetry 93 

Clergy  and  gleemen,  94.  Types  of  character  in  the  heroic  legends,  97. 
Style  of  the  heruic  poems,  i  oo. 


Contents.  ix 


The  Nibelungenlied     .        ...         ......     101 

Inequalities  of  the  poem,  102.  Songs  of  the  first  part,  104.  Songs 
of  the  second  part,  109.  '  Der  Nibelungen  Noth,'  112. 

Dietrich  von  Bern       ...         .......     115 

The  '  Klage,'  115.  '  Battle  of  Ravenna,'  117.  •  Albhart's  Death,'  117. 
'Biterolf  '  and  the  '  Rosengarten,'  118.  The  '  Hiirnen  Seifried,'  119. 
The  later  '  Hildebrandslied,'  119.  'Ennenrich's  Death,'  120. 

Ortnit  and  Wolfdietrich      .........     120 

'  Ortnit,'  1  20.     'Wolfdietrich,'  122. 

Hilde  and  Gudrun       ......         ....     124 

'  Gudrun,'  126.  Character  of  Gudrun,  128.  Other  characters,  129. 
The  poet's  style,  131.  Later  additions,  133. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Epics  of  Chivalry          .        . 135 

Character  of  the  iath  century  literature,  135.  Oldest  love  romance 
in  Middle  High-German,  'Flore,'  136.  Eilhard  von  Oberge's 
'Tristan,'  136. 

Heinrich  von  Veldeke 137 

Festival  of  Mainz,  A.  D.  1 184,  137.  Henry  VI.  as  a  Minnesinger,  137. 
Assonance  and  Rhyme,  138.  Veldeke's  Aeneid,  138.  His  songs,  140. 
Hisfollowers:  Heinrich  vonMorungen,  141.  Herbort  von  Fritzlar,  141. 
Albrecht  von  Halberstadt,  142.  Moritz  von  Craon,  143.  '  Pilatns,'  144. 

Hartmami  von  Aue  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg  .         .         .     145 

The  Upper  Rhine,  145.  Friedrich  von  Hausen,  146.  Reinmar  von 
Hagenau,  147.  Hartmann  von  Aue,  148.  (The  Arthur  romances,  151.) 
Hartmann  and  Chrestien  of  Troyes,  153.  The  popular  and  chival- 
rous epics,  155.  Gottfried  von  Strassburg,  157. 

Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  .         .        .  ^ 161 

General  characteristics,  162.  Life,  165.  Songs,  165.  '  Parzival,' 166. 
'Titurel,' 173.  '  Willehalm,'  1 73. 

Successors  of  the  Great  Chivalrous  Poets      .        .        .        .        .176 

Epics  after  a  foreign  original,  177.  Original  Epics,  177.  Historical 
Romances,  178.  Rhymed  chronicles,  178.  Disciples  of  Wolfram 
and  Gottfried,  179.  Rudolf  von  Ems,  180.  Konrad  von  Wiirtz- 
burg,  180.  The  later  '  Titurel,'  182.  'Lohengrin',  183.  Hadamar 
von  Laber,  184.  Clerical  poetry,  184.  Middle  High-German 
Artistic  Epics,  185. 


Contents. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PAGE 

Poets  and  Preachers 187 

Court  of  the  Landgrave  Hermann  of  Thuringia,  187.  The  *  Wart- 
burgkrieg,'  187.  St.  Elizabeth,  188.  Rise  of  the  Minnesang,  189. 

Walther  von  der  Vogelweide 189 

Life,  189.  His  '  Spriiche,'  192.  Minnesang,  194.  Older  Bajuvarian 
lyric  poetry,  194  ;  (Kiirenberg,  195  ;  Burggraf  of  Regensburg,  195  ; 
Dietmar  von  Aist,  196) ;  Walther  and  Reinmar,  197 ;  Characteristics 
of  Walther's  poetry,  198. 

Minnesang  and  Meistersang 201 

Ulrich  von  Lichtenstein,  202.  Reinmar  von  Zweter,  204.  Neidhart 
von  Reuenthal,  204.  Tannhauser,  206.  Court  of  Henry  of 
Swabia,  207.  Steimar,  208.  The  last  Minnesingers,  208.  The 
Meistersanger,  209.  Marner,  209.  Frauenlob,  210.  Regen- 
bogen,  210.  The  Wild  Alexander,  211.  Johann  Hadlaub,  an. 

Didactic  Poetry,  Satire  and  Tales 212 

The  Winsbeke,  212.  The  Wild  Man,  214.  Werner  von  Elmen- 
dorf,  214.  Thomasin  of  Zirclaria,  214.  Freidank,  215. — Satires  and 
Tales,  216.  Strieker,  217.  The  so-called  Seifried  Helbling,  218. 
•  Farmer  Helmbrecht,'  218.  'The  Bad  Wife,'  219.  Enenkel,  219. 
The  '  Wiener  Meerfahrt,'  220.  'Der  Weinschwelg,'  220.  Hugo 
von  Trimberg,  220.  Ulrich  Boner,  221. 

The  Mendicant  Orders 322 

Decay  of  Middle  High-German  Poetry,  223.  The  Franciscans,  226. 
Berthold  of  Regensburg,  226.  The  Dominicans,  229.  Albertus 
Magnus,  229.  The  Mystics,  229.  Mathilde  of  Magdeburg,  231. 
Opposition  to  the  Papal  power,  232.  Rulmann  Merswin,  240. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages 235 

Characteristics  of  the  period  from  1348  to  1648,  p.  236. 

Origin  and  Rise  of  the  Drama 238 

Play  of  the  Wise  and  Foolish  Virgins,  238.  The  Church  Festivals 
originated  the  Drama,  239.  Religious  Drama,  241-244.  Reuchlin's 
'  Henno,1  244.  Roman  comedy  revived,  245. 

Songs  and  Ballads 246 

The  later  Meistersingers,  246.     Volkslieder,  248.    Ballads,  250. 

Rhymed  Couplets 253 

'  Reineke  Fuchs,"  254.  Wittenweiler's  ' Ring,'  255.  'The  Devil's 
Net,'  256.  Hermann  von  Sachsenheim,  756.  Sebastian  Brand,  256. 
Thomas  Murner,  257.  Maximilian  I,  258. 


Contents.  xi 

PACE 

Prose 259 

Prose  romances,  259.  Eulenspiegel,  261.  History,  262.  Acker- 
mann  aus  Bb'hmen,'  263.  Niclas  von  Wyle,  264. 

The  New  Learning,  or  Humanism 264 

Heinrich  von  Langenstein,  265.  Gutenberg,  265.  Regiomon- 
tanus,  265.  Peuerbach,  266.  ^Eneas  Sylvius,  266.  Celtis,  266. 
'  Brotherhood  of  the  Common  Life,'  267.  Erasmus,  267.  Bebel,  268. 
Erfurt  circle  of  writers  and  the  Epistolae  obscurorum  virorum,  269. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

The  Beformati'on  and  the  Kenaissance         ....    271 

The  Period  from  1517  to  1648,  pp.  271,  272. 

Martin  Luther 272 

Translation  of  the  Bible,  274.  Language,  275.  Preaching,  276. 
Church  Song,  277.  Pamphlets,  279.  Luther's  influence,  281. 

Luther's  Associates  and  Successors 282 

Luther's  opponents.  The  Anabaptists,  282.  Roman  Catholics,  282. 
Hutten,  282.  Dialogues,  282.  First  newspapers,  285.  Verse  and 
Song,  285.  Calvinist  hymns:  Marot,  287.  Kaspar  Scheid,  287. 
Johann  Fischart,  288. 

Secular  Literature 290 

Melanchthon,  291.  Science,  291.  Latin  poetry,  293.  Translations,  293. 
Fables,  293.  Proverbs,  294.  Farcical  anecdotes,  295.  Secular 
songs,  296.  Novels,  296.  Jorg  Wickram,  297.  '  Faust,'  298. 

The  Drama  from  1517  to  1620 300 

Luther,  301.  Various  sorts  of  drama,  302.  Switzerland,  303. 
Alsace,  304.  Hans  Sachs,  304.  Luther's  circle,  306.  Nicodemus 
Frischlin,  309.  English  actors,  310.  Ayrer,  311.  Heinrich  Julius, 
Duke  of  Brunswick,  311.  Improvements  early  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  311. 

The  Thirty  Years'  War 314 

Science  and  Poetry  before  the  War,  314.  South-west  Germany,  316. 
The  '  Fruit-bringing  Society.'  317.  Poetry  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
war,  318.  Martin  Opitz,  319.  Fleming,  322.  Dach,  322.  Strass- 
burg,  323.  Nuremberg,  323.  Hamburg,  323.  Rist,  324.  Zesen,  324. 
Andreas  Gryphius,  325.  Popular  play  of  Dr.  Faustus,  330. 

CHAPTER  X. 

The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature  ...          .  331 

Development  of  Germany  since  the  peace  of  Westphalia,  331. 
Literature  and  religion,  333.  Princely  patronage,  334. 


xii  Contents. 


Religion  and  Science  ....;,...,.  .  .  .  335 
During  the  war,  336.  Roman  Catholics.  Friedr.  Spec,  337.  Angelas 
Silesius,  338.  Martin  von  Cochem,  339.  Abraham  a  Sancta 
Clara,  340.  Protestants.  Paul  Gerhardt,  342.  Spener,  344. 
Scriver,  345.  Joachim  Neander,  346.  Gottfried  Arnold,  347. 
Gerhard  Tersteegen,  348.  Count  Zinzendorf,  348.  Benjamin 
Schmolck,  349.  Brockes,  351.  Bach,  352.  Handel,  353.  Secular 
learning,  354.  Leibniz,  354.  Thomasius,  356.  Wolff,  357. 
Saxony  and  Prussia,  358. 

The  Befinement  of  Popular  Taste 359 

Literary  styles  and  costumes,  360  ('Bombast,'  361).  Idyllic  Poetry, 
363.  Hoffmannswaldau  and  Lohenstein,  366.  Satire  and  Epigram. 
Moscherosch,  367.  Lauremberg,  368.  Rachel,  369.  Logau,  369. 
Popular  Songs,  370.  Christian  Weise,  370.  French  literature,  371. 
Prussia  and  Saxony,  372.  Leipzig,  373.  Menke,  373.  Giinther,  373. 
Gottsched,  373.  Opposition,  374.  (Frederick  William  I.  of  Prussia, 
374.)  English  influence,  375.  Haller,  377.  Hagedorn,  379.  Retrospect 
and  Prospect,  382. 

The  Novel  , 382 

Hero-  and  love-romances,  383.  Popular  Tales,  386.  Grimmels- 
hausen,  387.  Christian  Weise,  389.  '  Schelmuffsky,'  390.  Imitations 
of  Robinson  Crusoe,  392. 

The  Drama 393 

The  Opera,  393.  Artistic  Drama,  395.  Christian  Weise,  396.  Drama 
in  Schools,  397.  Popular  Drama,  397.  Hanswurst,  400.  Gottsched, 
400. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE  ANCIENT  GERMANS. 

ABOUT  the  time  when  Alexander  the  Great  was  opening  new 
fields  to  Greek  science  by  his  invasion  of  India,  a  learned  Greek, 

Pytheas   of  Massilia,  started  from  his  native  town, 
.  Pytheas  of 

sailed  through  the   straits  of  Gibraltar,  along  the     Massilia 
western  coast  of  Spain  and  France,  and,  passing    discovers 

Great  Britain,  discovered  at  the  mouth  of  the  Rhine  ?*  Teuton* 

at  the  mouth 
a  new  people — the  Teutons.  of  the  Rhine 

Towards  the  end  of  the  second  century  B.C.,  these  *th  century 
same  Teutons  made  themselves  formidable  to  the         B-C' 
Romans.     A  little  later  we  find  the  great  race  to  which  they 
belonged  designated  by  a  Gallic  name — Germans,  which  is  supposed 
to  mean  '  the  neighbours.' 

Julius  Caesar  defeated  them,  and  yet  gained  no  real  footing  in 
their  country,  which  lay  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine.  He  gives 
a  sketch  of  his  barbaric  enemies  in  his  history  of  the  Julius 
Gallic  War,  but  could  furnish  only  an  imperfect  Caesar, 
account  of  their  intellectual  condition.  Their  religion  seemed  to 
him  pure  nature-worship.  He  notices — as  characteristic  features  of 
this  nation  of  hunters  and  warriors — the  freedom  of  their  life, 
their  want  of  all  sense  of  duty  and  of  propriety,  their  incapability 
of  self-control,  the  pleasure  they  took  in  hardening  themselves 
against  physical  suffering,  their  delight  in  marauding  expeditions, 
and  their  ambition  to  lay  waste  all  lands  bordering  on  their  own. 
In  all  this  he  expresses  neither  admiration  nor  contempt,  but 
simply  records  his  observations. 

Further  intercourse,  in  peace  and  war,  soon  made  the  Germans 
better  known  to  the  Romans.  In  the  first  century  of  our  era,  in 
the  first  glorious  years  of  the  Roman.  Empire,  our  forefathers 


3  The  Ancient  Germans.  [Ch.  I. 

excited  at  Rome  an  interest,  springing  partly  from  fear,  partly 
from  admiration.  The  Stoic  saw  in  the  unbroken  power  of  these 
children  of  nature  the  realisation  of  his  ideal  of  morality;  the 
aristocratic  champion  of  liberty  welcomed  in  the  Germans  the  fulfil- 
ment of  his  hopes,  while  the  far-seeing  patriot  recognised  in  them 
a  menace  to  his  country.  In  the  winter  of  98-99  the  historian 

Tacitus'  Tacitus  collected  all  that  was  known  about  them  in 
•  Germania.'  his  celebrated  Germania.  In  that  work  he  directed 
the  attention  of  the  Romans  to  this  remarkable  nation,  whose 
affairs  kept  the  newly-elected  emperor  Trajan  absent  from  the 
capital,  where  his  presence  was  ardently  desired.  He  drew  at  the 
same  time,  by  way  of  contrast,  a  picture  of  the  moral  consequences 
of  that  excessive  luxury  which  surrounded  himself  and  those  whom 
he  addressed.  There  is  in  his  account  something  of  the  tone  of 
the  pastoral  poem,  by  which  effete  civilisation  strives  to  satisfy, 
through  the  imagination,  its  longings  after  primitive  innocence. 

The  Germans  of  Tacitus  know  no  riches  other  than  their  herds ; 
the  possession  of  silver  and  gold  and  the  practice  of  usury  have 
no  attractions  for  them.  Their  dress  is  simple,  their  military 
equipment  imperfect.  They  value  warlike  adornments  as  little  as 
splendid  funeral  rites.  Their  food  consists  of  fruits,  game,  and 
milk.  They  are  exceedingly  hospitable,  and  live  not  in  towns, 
but  each  one  by  himself,  wherever  wood  or  field  or  spring  attracts 
him.  They  are  strangers  to  sensational  shows  and  to  artificial 
allurements  of  the  senses.  They  reverence  their  women,  lead 
pure  lives,  and  hold  the  marriage  tie  sacred. 

Although  the  noble  Roman's  description  contains  many  idyllic 
elements,  yet  it  is  not  fair  to  call  the  whole  of  it  a  mere  idyll. 
Tacitus  appears  to  have  had  abundant  material  before  him,  drawn 
from  immediate  observation,  and  but  slightly  coloured  by  his 
own  opinions.  The  life  of  the  Germans  is  thoroughly  known  to 
him ;  he  sketches  the  outlines  of  their  constitution,  their  military 
customs,  their  religion  and  manners.  He  does  not  suppress  their 
faults :  their  indolence  in  time  of  peace,  their  dislike  of  hard  work, 
their  immoderate  love  of  drink,  gambling,  and  fighting.  He  gives 
a  summary  of  the  numerous  tribes  and  clans  into  which  the  nation 
was  politically  divided,  and  produces  the  impression  of  an  inex- 


Ch,  I.]  The  Aryas.  3 

haustible  and  steadily  increasing  power,  upon  which  a  few  isolated 
Roman  victories  could  have  no  lasting  effect.  In  short,  it  is  evident 
that  his  picture  is  on  the  whole  a  faithful  one,  in  which  pleasing 
and  repugnant  features  are  mingled;  and  he  leaves  to  posterity  a 
valuable  record — valuable  for  general  history,  as  giving  an  idea 
of  the  character  of  that  people,  which  was  hereafter  to  destroy  the 
Roman  empire,  but  especially  valuable  to  us  who  are  descended 
from  them. 

THE  ARYAS. 

Tacitus  raises  the  question  whether  the  Germans  were  immi- 
grants, or  had  sprung  up  on  their  own  soil.  He  decides  in  favour 
of  the  latter  hypothesis,  because  it  seemed  to  him  impossible  that 
the  barren  land  which  they  inhabited  could  ever  have  attracted 
immigrants  from  another  country. 

Modern  science  gives  a  different  answer.  It  infers  from  the 
relationship  of  languages  the  relationship  of  nations,  and  the  ex- 
istence of  a  primitive  race  which  spread  and  ramified  by  migration. 
It  infers  from  cognate  words  the  existence  among  those  primordial 
tribes  of  the  things  which  those  words  designate,  and  thus  shows 
us  the  degree  of  civilisation  reached  by  them  before  they  branched 
off  into  different  nations.  It  infers  from  kindred  mythologies  and 
from  similarity  of  poetical  themes  the  existence  of  a  primordial 
mythology  and  poetry,  and  endeavours  to  distinguish  in  this  dark 
but  rich  background  the  beginnings  of  the  separate  nations,  known 
to  us  in  later  and  historical  times.  We  are  thus  able  to  trace  the 
antecedents  of  our  forefathers.  The  conquerors  of  Rome  fought 
without  knowing  it  against  a  people  who  had  once  spoken  the 
same  language  as  themselves,  and  had  migrated  with  them  from 
Asia  to  Europe. 

The  Germans  were  formerly  a  small  tribe  of  a  great  race,  some- 
times called  the  Indo-Germanic  race,  but  which  we  may  designate 
by  the  name,  probably  used  by  themselves,  of  Aryan. 
Most  of  the  European  peoples,  Celts,  Romans,  Greeks,  belong  to  the 
Germans,  and  Slavs,  and  in  Asia  the  Persians  and      Aryan 
Indians,  sprang  from  this  common  source,  and  re-      fam"y- 
present  the  whole  united  body  of  the  Aryan  race,  in  contra- 

B  2 


4  The  Ancient  Germans.  [ch.  I. 

distinction  to  the  similar  ethnographical  groups  of  the  Semitic 
and  Turanian  races. 

Before  their  dispersion  the  primitive  Aryas  had  already  passed 
out  of  the  lowest  stage  of  civilisation.  They  were  shepherds,  and 
The  ancient  acquainted  with  the  first  elements  of  a  rude  agri- 

Aryas.       culture.     Their  poetry  was  truthful,  graphic,  and  full 

of  imagery,  and  contained  the  germs  of  a  connected  view  of  things. 

Their  language  endowed  even  lifeless  objects  with  sex.     Most  of 

them  looked  upon  the  sky  and  the  sun  as  male,  on  the  moon  and 

the  earth  as  female,  and  thus  the  foundation  was  laid  for  a  human 

conception  of  the  whole  of  nature.     Personifications  and  allegories 

Primitive    arose  quite  naturally,  and  explanations  of  remarkable 

Aryan  my-   phenomena  or  events  in  nature  were  drawn  from 

thology.  tjje  anai0gy  of  human  experience.  Peculiarities  in 
animals  were  accounted  for  by  fables,  and  remarkable  occurrences 
in  nature,  both  regular  and  irregular,  such  as  the  alternation  of  day 
and  night,  the  change  of  the  seasons,  or  tempests,  were  explained 
in  the  same  manner.  These  men  saw  a  reflection  of  their  own 
simple  life  in  all  that  surrounded  them,  and  in  this  naive  way  tried 
to  account  for  whatever  they  could  not  understand.  They  created 
a  rich  mythology,  reflecting  the  main  incidents  of  a  pastoral 
life,  such  as  feuds  caused  by  the  capture  of  cattle  or  women,  or 
raids  upon  rich  owners.  The  sound  of  the  thunder  is  the  battle-cry 
in  the  strife  between  the  gods  and  giants.  The  former  are  favour- 
able to  man  and  take  his  part,  the  latter,  embracing  all  the  adverse 
powers  of  nature,  threaten  his  happiness. 

All  poetry  is  worthless  which  does  not  represent  the  visible  life 
that  surrounds  us.  The  Aryas  began  by  giving  poetical  expres- 
sion to  the  conditions  under  which  they  lived,  by  finding  words  to 
describe  the  uncommon  as  well  as  the  common,  and  by  arranging 
together  events  which  displayed  the  same  characteristic  features, 
till  at  last  they  were  able  to  give  them  a  typical  and  permanent 
form  of  expression. 

These  were  the  first  modes  of  their  poetical  activity,  the  basis  of 
all  further  poetical  invention.  When  an  independent  existence  has 
once  been  imparted  to  images  of  surrounding  life,  we  get  anecdotes, 
fables,  and  stories ;  and  out  of  this  lowest  stratum  of  Aryan  thought 


Ch.  I.]  The  Aryas.  5 

and  imagination  spring  the  human  elements  of  the  myth,  and  perhaps 
also  certain  tragic  elements  of  the  later  epic  poetry.     Such  is,  for 
instance,  the  noble  invincible  hero,  invulnerable  ex-     primitive 
cept  in  one  spot,   where  he  is  wounded  at  last  by      forms  of 
treachery,  like  Achilles  and  Siegfried ;  or  father  and       Aryan 
son  fighting  together,  unknown  or  only  half  known       poe   y' 
to  each  other,  and  yet  forced  to  fight  like  Laios   and  (Edipus, 
Rostem  and  Sohrab,  Hildebrand  and  Hadubrand. 

We  find,  moreover,  that  worldly  wisdom  and  experience  embodied 
itself  at  a  very  early  stage  in  the  most  various  forms.  The  same 
experience  may  on  the  one  hand  originate  a  story,  and  on  the  other 
hand  give  rise  to  some  reflection,  which  is  handed  down  as  a 
proverb.  Observations  of  natural  objects  might  take  the  form 
of  riddles.  Lastly,  the  selfishness  of  man  invented  all  sorts  of 
formulas  to  secure  the  fulfilment  of  his  wishes  from  the  gods  and 
from  his  fellow  men.  The  old  Aryas  had  medicinal  charms  for 
ruling  the  powers  of  nature,  and  making  them  subservient  to  the 
wants  of  man.  They  had  love  songs,  dwelling  on  the  harmony 
or  on  the  sharp  contrasts  between  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the 
human  heart  and  the  varying  phases  of  nature.  They  had  hymns 
which  were  sung  in  chorus;  songs  in  praise  of  celebrated 
men ;  songs  glorifying  the  deeds  of  their  gods,  and  im- 
ploring their  aid.  Such  songs  glorifying  the  gods  were  sung  at 
sacrifices,  and,  along  with  invocations  and  prayers,  formed  the 
noblest  class  of  ancient  poetry.  They  were  the  solemn  accom- 
paniment of  those  public  religious  ceremonies  on  which  depended 
the  weal  or  woe  of  a  nation,  a  tribe,  or  a  family,  origin  of 
Music  and  dancing  were  combined  with  this  poetry,  rhythm  and 
The  crowds  of  worshippers  danced  as  they  sang  their  metre, 
sacred  songs,  and  rhythm  and  metre  are,  in  fact,  a  remnant  of 
the  dance  which  once  formed  an  integral  portion  of  poetry  and 
music.  The  half  line  with  its  four  beats,  peculiar  to  the  oldest 
German  poems,  along  with  the  form  of  stanza  in  which  it  appears, 
is  found  in  the  old  hymns  of  the  Rig- Veda,  and  conjures  up  before 
the  trained  fancy  of  the  scholar  a  picture  of  old  Aryan  times.  We 
see  a  circle  of  men  gathered  round  the  place  of  sacrifice ;  they 
move  four  steps  forward  and  four  backward,  or  four  to  the  right 


6  The  Ancient  Germans.  [Ch.  I. 

and  four  to  the  left.  Measured  song  accompanies  their  movements. 
And  every  such  movement,  from  the  point  of  departure  till  the 
return  to  that  point,  corresponds  to  a  line  of  eight  beats  or  feet,  or 
to  double  as  many  syllables  in  the  song  which  accompanied  it 

GERMANIC  RELIGION. 

In  prehistoric  times  some  tribes  of  the  Aryan  race  migrated  into 

Europe.     These  tribes  developed  gradually  into  nations  no  longer 

Mi       .        able  to  understand  each  other's  speech.     The  several 

and  disper-  nations  again  split  up  into  tribes,  and  their  language 

•ion  of  the    was  divided  into  dialects  containing  the  germs  of  other 

ryas'       new  languages.     The  Germans  were   one  of  these 

nations.     They  established  themselves  at  first  in  North  Germany, 

spreading  as  far  as  Scandinavia,  and  in  later  times  tried  to  advance 

to  the  Rhine  and  South  Germany.    Everywhere  they  drove  back  the 

Celts,  and  at  last  found  themselves  face  to  face  with  the  Romans. 

From  this  time  onward  we  are  tolerably  well  informed  as  to  the 
degree  of  civilisation  which  our  forefathers  had  attained;  indeed 
we  are  able  to  form  a  conjecture  as  to  their  intellectual  develop- 
ment before  the  time  when  they  become  historically  known  to  us.    At 
least  we  can  discover  a  few  main  facts  in  the  history  of  their  religion. 
We  can   distinguish  an  early  epoch,  during  which  they  wor- 
shipped the  Heaven,  the  Aryan  Dyaus,   the  Greek 
epochiTin     Zeus,  as  the  highest  deity.     We  can  distinguish  a 
the  religious  second  epoch,  in  which  the  worship  of  the  heaven-god 
development  Was  confined   more  and  more   to  the  tribe  of  the 
°Oermansly  Suebi,  tne  later  Suabians,  whose  oldest  settlements 
on  the  middle  Elbe  may  be  looked  upon  as  the  first 
home  of  the  Germans  in  Europe.     The  new  tribes  which  started 
thence  chose  their  own  favourite  gods,  whose  sanctuary  was  the 
central   meeting-place  of  the   tribe.     The    eastern    nations,   the 
Vandals  and  Goths,  worshipped   a  divine  pair   of  brothers,   re- 
sembling Castor  and  Pollux.     The  tribes  on  the  North  Sea,  the 
forefathers  of  the  future  conquerors  of  England,  worshipped  a  god- 
dess Nerthus,  who  in  modern  times  has  been  wrongly  called  Hertha 
and  relegated  to  the  Baltic  coasts.     The  tribes  on  the  Rhine,  the 


ch.  I.]  Germanic  Religion.  j 

later  Franks,  worshipped  the  storm -god  Wodan  as  their  leader 
and  protector.  Finally,  we  can  distinguish  a  third  epoch  in  which 
this  Wodan  has  been  set  above  all  the  other  gods.  The  Germanic 
tribes  on  the  Rhine  attained  a  higher  degree  of  culture  through 
intercourse  with  their  Celtic  neighbours,  and  Wodan,  the  god  of 
their  tribes,  impersonates  their  highest  culture.  The  storm-god, 
who  hurries  through  the  air  with  the  departed  spirits,  now  becomes 
a  god  of  knowledge,  of  poetry,  the  giver  of  understanding,  of 
victory,  and  of  all  good.  The  worshippers  of  Wodan  probably 
acquired  a  more  refined  art  of  war  and  better  weapons  from  the 
Celts.  Wodan  himself  carries  a  spear,  and  gives  to  those  whom 
he  loves  precious  swords,  to  be  taken  away  again  at  his  pleasure. 
When  he  is  represented  as  the  author  of  victory,  this  implies  that 
victory  ultimately  rests  with  intelligence. 

The  higher  civilisation  of  the  Rhenish  tribes,  and  with  it  the 
worship   of  Wodan,  spread    to    all    the   Germans.     A  common 
mythology  sprang   up,  which   later  on   enabled  the  _ 
Romans  to  identify  certain  German  deities  with  some    a  common 
of  their   own  gods.      Wodan,    the   most  honoured,      German 
and,  at  the  same  time,  the  swift  traveller,  was  iden-    my     J  ogy' 
tified  with  Mercury.     Friya,  the   German  Venus,  was   his  wife. 
The  old  heaven-god  Tius  had  retired  to  the  position  of  god  of 
war,  and  might  therefore  be  compared  with  Mars.     His  former 
task  of  conquering  the  giants  in  the  tempest  is  transferred  to  an 
entirely  new  god,  Donar,  in  Old  English  Thunor,  the  personification 
of  thunder,  who  was  invested  with  certain   grotesque   and  rude 
characteristics.   Armed  with  the  hammer,  he  reminded  the  Romans, 
by  his  constant  struggle  with  monsters  and  robbers,  of  the  ad- 
venturous club-bearer  Hercules,  or,  according  to  a    its  warlike 
higher  conception  of  him,  of  the  thunderer  Jove  him-     character, 
self.     Almost  all  the  Germanic  gods  and  goddesses  have  a  war- 
like aspect.     They  carry  on  a  perpetual    strife  with   giants   and 
dragons,  and  at  the  end  of  all  things  they  are  themselves  destroyed 
by  the  world-consuming  fire,  Micspilli. 

The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  accuracy  of  some  of  these 
statements  is  disputed.  It  is  not  certain  that  the  German  Olympus 
bore  such  a  warlike  character  in  all  epochs.  Side  by  side  with 


8  The  Ancient  Germans.  [ch.  I. 

the  fiercer  traits  are  found  genfler  ones,  which  probably  point  to  a 
time  when  milder  sentiments  prevailed. 

The  later  northern  mythology  assigns  the  goddess  of  peace  to 
the  rude  Thunderer  as  his  wife ;  and,  after  the  last  dread  struggle 
between   gods   and    giants,    after   the   general    con- 
elements  in  flagration,  in  which  the  sun  is  blackened   and   the 
the  later     eaith  disappears,  a  hope  is  held  out  to  the  souls  of 

Icelandic     ^  faithfui  of  an  eternal  realm  of  peace.     Then  the 
mythology.  r 

earth,  green  and  beautiful,  will  rise  again  from  the 

sea,  and  corn  will  spring  up  unsown ;  all  evil  will  disappear,  and 
sinless  gods  will  reign  for  ever. 

We  possess  many  proper  names  used  by  the  various  German 
tribes,  and  comparison  shows  us  that  they  are  of  the  highest 

Proper       antiquity.     The  names  given  to  boys  and  girls  may 

names.  be  compared  to  those  of  patron  saints  given  in  later 
times  in  the  Catholic  Church;  they  pointed  to  examples  of 
virtue,  as  ideals  after  which  they  were  to  strive.  Thus  these  old 
German  proper  names  show  us  what  our  forefathers  held 
to  be  most  truly  good  and  beautiful.  The  names  of  men 
express  those  qualities  which  secure  success  in  life,  wisdom, 
strength,  fortitude,  the  virtues  of  the  warrior  and  the  ruler,  but 
above  all  the  resolute  will  which  pursues  its  object  with  fervour 
Two  classes  an^  determination.  The  names  of  women,  on  the 
of  names  of  other  hand,  fall  into  two  distinct  groups.  In  the 

women,  names  of  the  one  group  nature  and  beauty  are 
combined;  they  tell  of  love,  gentle  grace,  purity,  and  constancy. 
The  other  group  shows  us  women  rejoicing  in  battle,  bearing  arms, 
and  waving  their  torches  as  they  rush  on  to  victory.  Such  warlike 
women,  the  Walkyries,  are  also  found  in  German  mythology. 
Tacitus  attests  the  respect  paid  by  the  Germans  to  women,  and 
their  belief  in  woman's  sanctity  and  prophetic  power.  He  re- 
presents the  women  as  counselling,  inspiriting,  and  tending  the 
men;  but  later  historians  tell  of  some  women  who  took  part, 
fully  armed,  in  battle.  The  same  age  and  soil  can  hardly  have 
originated  such  divergent  ideals  of  womanhood.  These  names, 
fraught  with  such  opposite  moral  significance,  probably  point 
to  two  different  epochs  in  the  spiritual  growth  of  the  nation. 


Ch.  I.]  Germanic  Religion.  9 

The  one  appointed  to  women  their  special  sphere,  and  bowed  in 
reverence  before  the  weaker  sex ;  the  other  prized  in  women  suc- 
cessful emulation  only  of  masculine  qualities. 

A  similar  change  in  moral  views  seems  to  be  reflected  in  the 
name  and  myth  of  the  sun.     There  must  have  been  a  time  when 

love  of  beauty  and  reverence  for  women  predomi- 

,          ,    ,  ,         ,  Sun  myths, 

nated,  and  then  it  was  that  the  Aryan  sun-god  was 

changed  into  a  goddess.  Later  on  the  same  goddess  received  the 
name  of  Sindgund,  that  is,  '  she  who  must  fight  her  way.'  She 
then  adopts  the  hero's  dress,  and  under  this  aspect  is  also  called 
Brunhild,  i.  e.  '  the  fighter  in  armour.'  The  myth  further  tells  us 
how  the  sun  goes  of  an  evening  to  her  home  in  the  west,  and  how 
the  heaven-god  of  a  morning  wakes  the  sleeping  goddess,  who 
appears  on  the  summit  of  the  hills  in  glowing  flame — in  rosy  dawn. 

The  hero,  who  later  on  took  the  place  of  the  heaven- 
Siegfried, 
god  in  the  legend  of  Brunhild,  was  called  Siegfried. 

His  name  implies  that  he  fights  for  victory,  in  order  to  secure 
peace,  and  he  too  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  symbols  of  that  milder 
view  of  life  which  we  must  distinguish  in  the  history  of  our  fore- 
fathers. He  is  the  ideal  of  a  hero  and  of  a  perfect  man;  the 
gods  and  the  good  spirits  are  favourable  to  him.  The  clever 
dwarfs  educate  him ;  he  learns  the  trade  of  a  smith,  and  a  godlike 
woman  initiates  him  in  sacred  wisdom.  He  is  early  surrounded 
by  the  glory  of  wonderful  deeds ;  riches  and  power  are  his  portion  ; 
love  beautifies  his  life ;  but  he  falls  by  the  treachery  of  a  powerful 
enemy,  and  his  early  death  raises  him  to  still  higher  glory.  The 
character  of  Siegfried  lived  on  for  centuries  in  the  imagination  of 
the  poets.  His  praises  were  first  sounded,  it  appears,  by  those 
same  Franks  who  spread  the  worship  of  Wodan.  And  in  the  age 
of  the  migration  of  the  German  tribes  and  of  the  introduction  of 
Christianity  among  them,  the  story  of  Siegfried  was  bequeathed  by 
the  expiring  mythology  to  the  folk-lore,  which  has  preserved  it  to 
the  present  day. 


io  The  Ancient  Germans.  [Ch.  I. 

OLDEST  REMAINS  OF  POETRY. 

'  This  I  heard  as  the  greatest  marvel  among  men,  that  once  there 

was  no  earth,  nor  heaven  above,  the  bright  stars  gave  no  light, 

the  sun  shone  not,  nor  the  moon,  nor  the  glorious  sea.'     With 

some  such  words  as  these  begins  a  literary  relic  of  the  eighth 

The  Wesso-  or  nmt^  century,  ending  in  a  prayer,  the  so-called 

brunner      '  Wessobrunner   Gebet.'      It  is  the  beginning  of  a 

Gebet.       Saxon  poem,  written  down  in  Bavaria.     The  same 

primitive  chaos  is  still  more  clearly  depicted  in  a  Norwegian  poem 

Voluspa : — There  was  neither  sand  nor  sea  nor  cool 
VSluspii. 

wave ;  there  was  no  earth  nor  heaven  above ;  there 

was  a  yawning  gulf,  and  no  firm  land  anywhere.  Such  a  coin- 
cidence of  ideas  in  poems  coming  from  different  and  distant  locali- 
ties, leads  us  to  infer  a  common  origin  of  the  highest  antiquity. 
We  seem  to  hear  in  them  an  echo  of  primitive  Germanic  times, 
when  our  forefathers  were  heathens.  Such  echoes  are  rare,  and 
are  therefore  worthy  of  careful  attention. 

The  first  line  of  the  Bavarian  Manuscript  runs  thus : — 

'Dat  gafregin  ih  mit  firahim  firiwizzo  meista.' 

If  these  words  are  read  aloud,  the  three  f's  at  once  strike 
the  ear.  The  three  similar  initial  letters  serve  to  ornament 

and  bind  together  the  eight  feet  of  the  line.     This 
Alliteration.      ....  ,  .    ,  ...  ,  , 

alliteration    may   be   regarded   as   an   indispensable 

element  of  versification  in  all  old  German  poetry.  It  gives  to 
the  verse  not  melody,  but  a  characteristic  sound;  it  does  not 
beautify  it,  but  makes  it  compact  and  strong.  Such  alliteration 
results  from  a  tendency  early  found  in  the  Germanic  nature,  which 
renders  all  art  difficult  to  us — a  tendency,  namely,  to  prize  originality 
more  than  beauty,  substance  more  than  form.  This  feature  has 
even  stamped  itself  on  our  language.  Already  in  very  early  times 
the  accent  was  laid  on  the  root- syllable,  and  all  inflections  tended  to 
disappear.  The  word  mensch  (man)  was  once  manntsko;  now  the 
three  syllables  are  reduced  to  one,  at  the  expense  of  all  euphony. 
Only  the  first  sound  of  the  root-syllable  is  considered  in  alliteration, 
no  notice  being  taken  of  the  vowels,  so  that  the  chief  place  is  held 
by  the  consonants.  The  consonants  have  been  well  called  the 


Ch.  I.]  Oldest  Remains  of  Poetry.  1 1 

bones  of  speech,  while  the  vowels  fulfil  the  office  of  the  flesh, 
imparting  colour  and  beauty.  The  old  German  ear,  however,  had 
little  feeling  for  beauty  and  colour. 

Apart  from  its  alliteration  and  the  changes  which  language  has 
undergone,  German  poetry  remains  at  this  epoch  essentially 
Aryan.  It  has  the  same  technical  means  at  its  dis- 
posal, and  is  moulded  in  the  same  forms.  The 
chorus  in  which  the  multitude  takes  part  is  still  the  character  of 
leading  type.  Individuals  are  subordinate  to  the  the  earliest 
whole  body  of  singers,  though  in  the  course  of 
time  they  separate  from  them,  as  chief  singers, 
dancers,  or  actors.  The  choral  song  comprised  lyric,  epic,  and 
dramatic  elements,  and  was  accompanied  by  march  and  dance, 
sometimes  even  by  pantomime. 

Choral  songs  played  an  important  part  on  all  the  great  occasions 
of  private  and  public  life.  Choral  song  received  the  wedded  bride, 
and  conducted  her  to  her  husband.  The  praises  of 
the  dead  were  celebrated  in  a  solemn  funeral  chorus. 
The  march  into  battle  and  the  sacrificial  procession  were  attended 
with  choral  song.  The  departure  for  battle  was  itself  a  kind  of 
sacred  procession,  when  all  who  took  part  in  it  sang  the  praises  of 
a  saving  god,  Donar  (Thunor),  the  slayer  of  monsters.  Their 
loud  battle-cry,  which  they  called  bardiius,  was  supposed  to  be  an 
imitation  of  thunder,  the  '  beard  speech  '  of  the  god.  They  also 
sang  the  deeds  of  their  ancestors,  and  drew  courage  from  the 
example  of  their  forefathers.  Little  is  told  us  about  the  sacrifice 
itself,  but  remnants  of  heathen  worship  lingered  on  for  a  long 
time,  and  with  them  some  poor  fragments  of  songs.  Thus 
for  example,  in  Mecklenburg,  the  reapers  still  leave  a  few  ears 
of  corn  uncut;  these  they  tie  together,  besprinkle  them,  form 
a  circle  round  them,  and  taking  off  their  hats,  call  on  Wodan, 
'Wode,  Wode,  now  fetch  thy  horse  food,  now  thistle  and  thorn, 
in  a  year's  time  corn.' 

Tacitus  tells  us  of  a  solemn  procession  of  the  goddess  Nerthus. 
She  was  thought  to  be  present  in  a  covered  car  drawn  by  cows 
and  accompanied  by  a  priest.  She  was  received  everywhere 
with  reverence,  and  on  her  advent  weapons  were  laid  aside  amid 


12  The  Ancient  Germans.  [ch.  I. 

general  peace  and  rejoicing.  The  Roman  historian,  however, 
makes  no  mention  of  songs.  The  Langobardi  again,  to  the  great 
wrath  of  Pope  Gregory  the  Great,  offered  the  head  of  a  goat,  with 
songs  and  dances,  to  some  heathen  deity,  or,  as  he  says,  to  the 
devil.  Lastly,  in  comparatively  modern  times,  it  was  the  custom  in 
many  places  for  a  hammer,  a  fox,  or  a  crow  to  be  carried  about 
with  singing.  All  these  are  relics  of  the  old  heathen  symbolism, 
and  of  primitive  religious  processions. 

Again  a  myth  might  be  represented  dramatically,  as  the  struggle 
between  summer  and  winter  is  sometimes  represented  even  in  our 
day.  Summer  appears  dressed  in  ivy  or  periwinkle,  Winter  in  straw 
or  moss.  They  fight  until  Summer  is  victorious.  Then  vanquished 
Winter  is  stripped  of  his  covering,  which  is  scattered  to  the  winds, 
and  a  wreath  or  branch  of  summer  flowers  is  carried  round  in 
procession.  The  chorus  sings  songs,  to  encourage  and  praise  the 
conqueror,  and  uses  words  of  which  the  meaning  is  now  half  lost, 
1  Stab  aus,  stab  aus,  bias  dem  Winter  die  Augen  aus.' 

The  same  dramatic  setting  might  be  given  to  Thunor's  conflict 
with  the  giants ;  or  again,  Wodan's  marriage  with  Friya  and  the 
awakening  of  the  sun-maiden  might  be  made  to  furnish  material 
for  small  pantomimic  scenes,  in  which  chosen  actors  represented 
what  was  expressed  in  the  words  of  the  songs.  When  the  actors 
sang,  and  established  themselves  along  with,  but  independently 
of  the  chorus,  dialogue  and  with  it  the  beginning  of  the  drama 
were  created. 

Such  songs  and  representations  were  not  restricted  to  solemn 
occasions,  but  could  also  be  used  in  social  gatherings  and  at 
festivals.  Amongst  children's  games  there  are  still  many  with 
dramatic  action,  founded  on  some  fairy  tale  or  fable  of  animal 
life.  In  the  same  wav  myths  were  probably  dramatised  in  primi- 
tive times. 

But  choral   poetry   is   not  the  only  kind    of    poetry   at   this 

period.     The  other  Aryan  forms  of  poetry  also  continue  to  exist. 

Lyrics  and    The  maiden  greets  her  lover  thus:  'I  wish  thee  as 

riddles.  much  joy  as  there  is  foliage  in  spring ;  I  wish  thee 
as  much  love,  as  the  birds  find  delight  and  food ;  I  wish  thee  as 
much  honour  as  the  earth  bears  grass  and  flowers.'  At  social 


Ch.  I.]  Oldest  Remains  of  Poetry.  13 

gatherings  riddles  were  set,  founded  on  simple  observation  of 
nature,  like  the  following : — 

'There  came  a  bird  featherless, 
Sat  on  a  tree  leafless ; 
There  came  a  maiden  speechless, 
And  eat  the  bird  featherless 
From  off  the  tree  leafless.' 

This  signifies  the  sun  eating  up  the  snow.  In  a  simpler  form  the 
same  riddle  occurs  in  Vedic  times.  '  What  is  the  best  medicine 
for  snow  ?'  The  answer  is,  '  the  Sun.' 

In  time  of  need,  the  help  of  heaven  is   invoked  by  a  charm 
which  consists  in  relating  a  mythical  incident  ana- 
logous to  the  earthly  one.     The   repetition    of  the 
saving  words  which  proved  effectual  in  the  myth  is  supposed  to 
secure  an  equally  favourable  result  in  the  actual  earthly  difficulty. 
This  is  illustrated  in  the  two  charms  found  at  Merseburg. 

The  first  refers  to  the  horse  of  the  god  Phol  or  Balder,  and 
introduces  us  to  a  whole  company  of  gods.     It  runs     The  two 
thus :  '  Phol  and  Wodan  rode  into  the  forest ;  suddenly    Merseburg 
Balder's  horse  sprained  its  foot.     Sindgund  and  her      charms, 
sister  Sunna  uttered  a  charm  over   him.     Volla   and   her  sister 
Friya  did  the  same ;  but  all  in  vain.    Then  Wodan,  who  understood 
such  things  well,  uttered  his  charm.     He  charmed  away  the  sprain 
in  the  bone,  the  blood,  and  the  joint.     He    uttered   the  potent 
formula,  "  Bone  to  bone,  blood  to  blood,  joint  to  joint,  as  if  they 
were  glued." ' 

Of  course  the  meaning  is  that  the  desired  effect  immediately 
followed,  and  that  the  formula  would  produce  the  same  result  in 
all  similar  cases.  This  formula  is  of  common  Aryan  origin.  An 
old  Indian  charm  begins  '  Let  marrow  join  to  marrow,  and  also 
limb  to  limb;  may  what  thou  hast  lost  in  flesh  and  bone,  grow 
again;  manow  be  joined  to  marrow,  skin  to  skin;  let  blood  come 
to  the  bones,  and  flesh  to  the  flesh,  let  hair  join  hair,  and  skin 
skin.' 

Wodan,  the  god  of  wisdom,  is  also,  as  we  see,  the  chief  physician. 
Even  the  art  of  the  four  heavenly  women,  who  understand  wounds 
as  the  German  wives  did,  is  far  inferior  to  his. 


14  The  Ancient  Germans.  [Ch.  I. 

The  second  Merseburg  charm  is  said  to  have  power  to  loose  a 
prisoner's  bonds.  It  describes  the  activity  of  the  heavenly 
women,  the  Walkyries,  in  the  battle.  They  are  divided  into 
three  detachments ;  the  first  bind  the  prisoners  in  the  rear  of  the 
army  which  they  favour,  others  engage  the  foe,  the  third  group 
appear  in  the  rear  of  the  enemy,  where  the  prisoners  are  secured, 
and  touching  their  fetters,  utter  the  formula  of  deliverance  : 
'  Escape  from  your  bonds,  flee  from  the  enemy.' 

There  were  charms  also  for  protection  and  blessing,  com- 
mending men  to  the  protecting  hand  of  the  gods  when  starting  on 
a  journey,  or  cattle  when  sent  to  pasture. 

But  above  all,  it  was  the  principles  which  regulated  life,  and 
underlay  morality  and  law,  that  were  embodied  in  poetic  form. 
Poetical  There  were  no  written  laws,  but  the  priest  pro- 
elements  in  claimed  the  fixed  laws  as  approved  by  the  people, 
primitive  He  was  the  'mouth-piece'  and  guardian  of  the  laws. 
These  promulgations  of  the  law  often  described  in 
detail  the  circumstances  of  actual  life,  which  the  law  covered, 
and  this  gave  rise  to  real  poetry,  whose  charm  lingers  even  in 
the  later  written  code.  For  instance,  certain  Frisian  law-docu- 
ments enumerate  the  'three  needs'  or  conditions  under  which 
the  inheritance  of  a  fatherless  child  may  be  alienated,  and  in 
doing  this  bring  before  us  a  touching  picture  of  misery.  '  The 
first  "need"  is,  when  the  child  is  taken  prisoner  and  carried 
away  bound,  northwards  over  the  sea,  or  southwards  beyond  the 
mountains ;  the  mother  may  then  part  with  her  child's  inheritance, 
and  thus  set  her  child  free  and  save  his  life.  The  second  "  need  " 
is  when  years  of  dearth  come,  and  famine  reigns  in  the  land,  and 
the  child  is  dying  of  hunger ;  then  the  mother  may  alienate  his 
inheritance  and  buy  him  therewith  corn  and  cattle,  that  his  life 
may  be  spared,  for  hunger  is  the  sharpest  of  swords.  The  third 
"  need  "  is,  if  the  child  is  naked  and  houseless,  and  the  cloudy  night 
and  ice-cold  winter  peep  through  the  hedges,  and  all  men  hurry 
to  their  hearths  and  homes,  and  the  wild  beasts  take  refuge  in 
the  hollow  trees  and  rocky  caves ;  the  innocent  child  cries  and 
laments  its  nakedness  and  wails  because  it  has  no  shelter,  and 
because  its  father  who  would  protect  it  against  cold  winter  and 


Ch.  I.]  Oldest  Remains  of  Poetry.  15 

gnawing  hunger  is  lying  in  the  dark  depths  of  the  earth,  in  his 
oak  coffin  fastened  down  with  four  nails,  and  hidden  away;  then 
the  mother  may  alienate  and  sell  her  child's  inheritance.' 

All  solemn  legal  proceedings  were  accompanied  by  poetry. 
Oaths  were  sworn  in  alliterative  verse.  The  sentence  of  banish- 
ment was  uttered  in  alliterative  language.  The  culprit  is  to  be  a 
fugitive  and  an  outcast,  everywhere  and  always :  wheresoever  fire 
burns,  and  grass  is  green,  child  cries  for  its  mother  or  mother 
bears  a  child,  as  far  as  ship  sails,  shield  glitters,  sun  melts  snow, 
feather  flies,  fir-tree  flourishes,  hawk  flies  through  the  long  spring 
day,  while  the  wind  lifts  its  wings,  wheresoever  the  welkin  spreads, 
or  the  world  stands  fast,  winds  roar  and  waters  flow  into  the  sea. 

Indeed,  all  legal  formulas  were  full  of  alliteration.  And  some 
expressions  uniting  two  terms  each  having  the  same  initial  letter, 
remain  even  in  our  time,  such  as  house  and  home,  spick  and  span, 
weal  and  woe,  hand  and  heart,  stock  and  stone,  kith  and  kin,  bed 
and  board,  wind  and  weather. 


CHAFER    II. 

» 

GOTHS  AN^   FRANKS. 

Two  classical  periods  are  usually  recognised  in  the  history  of 
German  literature;  but  it  is  probable  that  there  were  in  reality 
three.  It  is  true  that  nothing  but  fragments  of  a  single  song 

Three  clas-  remams    to    us    ^rom    ^e    ^rst    period,    but   to    the 

sical  periods  historian  lost  poems  are  often  as  important  as  those 

of  German  stfll  extant,  if  their  former  existence  can  be  proved 

iterature.  &n^  ^^  jnfluence  on  after  ages  established.     That 

first  period  was  richer  indeed  in  inventive  genius  than  any  that 
followed  it;  the  characters  which  it  created  are  full  of  moral 
grandeur,  and  are  well  known  to  us  through  the  later  Epics, 
though  the  songs  which  first  told  of  them  can  never  be  recovered. 
Such  was  the  creative  force  of  language  that  these  earliest  poetic 
types  lived  on  through  long  ages,  nay,  even  when  they  seemed  to 
have  died  out,  revived  again  with  fresh  and  undiminished  vigour. 
The  poetical  stories  of  that  first  classical  period  were  revived  in 
the  epic  poems  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  century,  in  the  Nibe- 
lungenlied,  Gudrun,  Hugdietrich  and  Wolfdietrich  and  others. 
These  stories  are  usually  designated  as  the  German  hero-legends. 

The  whole  scheme  of  our  history  of  literature  becomes  perfectly 
clear,  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  it  has  attained  those  culminating 
points,  separated  each  from  the  other  by  about  600  years. 

About  the  year  600  A.D. — if  I  may  be  allowed  to  fix  a  date, 
which  should  only  be  taken  approximately — after  the  total  change 
effected  in  Europe  by  the  destruction  of  the  Empire  of  the 
West,  at  a  time  when  the  Germans  had  not  forgotten  their  own 
First  das-  m'grati°n.  though  they  had  begun  to  feel  the  strong 
sical  period,  intellectual  influence  of  conquered  Rome, — the  Ger- 

circa        manic  national  Epic  attained  its  highest  development. 
A.D.  600.      n ,         e 

More  fortunate  in  this  respect  than  the  Germans,  the 

English  possess  in  Beowulf  a  fine  and  well-preserved  specimen  of 


ch.li.]        Classical  Periods  of  German  Literature.  17 

what  Germanic  poetry  could  accomplish  at  that  period.  About  the 
year  1200,  as  we  have  already  said,  the  half-forgotten  Second  clas. 
stories  of  the  hero-legends  appear  again,  and  are  sical  period, 

embodied  in  the  well-known  poems,  the  Nibeluno;en-        circa 

A  D  1200 
lied  and  Gudrun.     The  same  period  produced  lyric 

and  epic  poets  of  the  first  order,  whose  artistic  training  was  at  least 
in  part  based  on  French  models.  Such  are  Wolfram  von  Eschen- 
bach,  Gottfried  von  Strassburg,  and  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide. 

About  the  year  1800  Germany  had  its  Goethe,  its  Schiller,  and 
other  poets  and  scholars,  who  absorbed  in  themselves    mj,ird  cias_ 
the  rays  of  French,  English,  classical  and  their  own  8iCal  period, 
old  national  culture,  and  added  them  in  a  purified        circa 
form  to  the  intellectual  life  of  the  nation.     The  old 
heroic  songs  revived  again,  the  Nibelungen  legend  acquired  new 
fame,  new  poets  made  use  of  the  old  materials,  and  the  brothers 
Grimm  became  the  leaders  of  a  new  science,  which  sought  to 
recover  for  the  present  the  vanished  creations  of  the  past. 

These  three  culminating  points  of  development  imply  a  struggle 
to  reach    these    points,   an   ascent   followed   by  a   descent.    As 
far  as  we  can  judge,  the  tenth  and  sixteenth  cen- 
turies  were    the    times    of   deepest    depression    in     ^°Peri°  s 

r  of  depression 

German  literature.     Literary  culture  was  then  at  its    in  German 

lowest  ebb;    poetry  excited  no  general  interest,  but    literature, 

became  a  medium  of  party  strife,  or  a  mere  mechanical         *n  . 

centuries. 

exercise,  or  a  source  of  coarse  amusement.  The 
poetry  of  these  periods  was  not  entirely  wanting  in  creative  genius ; 
it  had  vast  materials  at  its  disposal,  and  even  created  certain  moral 
types  of  great  grandeur,  though  they  were  mostly  the  offspring  of 
hatred  or  rude  jest.  But  the  charm  of  form  is  totally  absent  from 
it ;  it  is  too  superficial,  too  indifferent  to  outward  beauty ;  it  did 
not  care  to  go  deep  enough  to  attain  perfection  and  refinement; 
it  left,  in  fact,  the  best  it  had,  as  formless  material  to  be  put  into 
shape  by  a  happier  generation. 

The  times  of  deepest  depression  are  likewise  separated  from 
each  other  by  600  years.  The  course  of  our  history  of  literature 
may  therefore  be  reduced  to  the  simplest  scheme:  three  great 
waves,  trough  and  crest  in  regular  succession. 

c 


1 8  Goths  and  Franks.  [Ch.  n. 

Alas !  only  too  regular.  Treasures  were  scarcely  won  when  they 
were  lost  again,  and  the  nation  had  to  begin  once  more  from  the 
beginning.  The  religious  epic  flourished  in  the  ninth  century, 
but  was  completely  forgotten  by  the  twelfth.  The  perfection  of 
form  found  in  the  thirteenth  century  had  entirely  disappeared 
in  the  fifteenth.  Poets  of  little  talent  had  a  hard  struggle  to 
purge  their  verse  of  the  grosser  elements  of  the  sixteenth  century 
and  recover  purity  of  form  and  refinement  of  language.  We 
ourselves  feel  at  the  present  day  that  there  is  a  risk  of  the 
German  nation  degenerating  from  the  ideals  which,  in  Goethe's 
time,  constituted  its  greatness  and  its  pride.  Other  nations  are 
more  fortunate  in  this  respect,  and  know  better  how  to  preserve 
their  literary  traditions. 

Both  the  second  and  the  third  of  the  classical  periods  are  marked 

by  a  spirit  of  free  criticism  which  triumphs  over  all 
Characters-         .      *  _ 

tics  of  the    prejudices.     Respect   for  foreign   nations   increases, 

second  and   regardless  of  political  differences.     Men  are  liberal 

third  clas-    enough  to  feel  that  appreciation  of  foreign  merits  is 
sical  periods.  .  .  . 

no  sin  against  national  pride.     Thus  it  was  that  the 

more  developed  sense  of  form,  characteristic  of  the  Romanic 
nations,  exercised  a  beneficial  influence  on  the  Germans,  purified 
their  taste,  incited  them  to  imitation,  yet  withal  developed  their 
originality.  Hand  in  hand  with  this  tolerance  of  foreign  nation 
alities,  went  religious  toleration  and  abandonment  of  rigid  con- 
ventionalities in  life  and  literature.  Moral  judgment  became 
more  liberal,  and  at  the  same  time  a  higher  sense  of  honour 
sprang  up,  and  led  to  a  nobler  type  of  humanity.  The  in- 
dividual soul  became  inspired  with  a  noble  self-consciousness, 
springing  from  the  consciousness  of  pure  intentions.  In  good 
society  the  lower  passions  are  silenced.  Women  are  worshipped 
with  a  pure  enthusiasm.  '  Honour  the  women '  is  Schiller's 
precept,  and  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  sang  : — 

'Pure  women  are  sweet  as  honeyed  flowers.  What  shall  compare  unto  the 
sight  of  them  ?  Verily  they  are  fairer  than  aught  in  air,  or  earth,  or  in  green 
fields.' 

Women  themselves  are  at  pains  to  develop  their  nature  within 
the  limits  of  their  sex.  They  do  not  try  to  disguise  their  weakness 


ch.  ii.]  The  Heroic  Songs.  19 

as  strength,  or  openly  to  compete  with  men,  but  are  content 
with  the  indirect  influence  which  nature  gives  them.  They 
do  not  enter  into  public  life,  but  they  exert  their  influence  on 
men,  and  through  them  on  the  world.  Their  smile  rewards 
the  hero,  the  orator,  the  poet.  They  are  the  guardians  of  good 
manners,  they  demand  self-restraint  and  culture.  In  their  service 
poetry  is  spiritualised,  and  produces  its  best  in  epic,  romance,  and 
lyric  song. 

THE  HEROIC  SONGS. 

Young  nations,  like  children,  have  no  memory;  they  live  in  the 
present,  in  pleasure  and  pain,  in  hopes  and  wishes.  But  great 
suffering  and  great  dangers  make  a  deeper  impression  on  them  ; 
whoever  appears  as  a  deliverer  in  time  of  need  is  praised,  and,  if 
a  tragic  fate  should  overtake  him,  he  lives  on  for  a  time  in  song. 
This  was  the  case  with  the  Cheruscan  Arminius,  the  liberator  of 
Germany,  at  least  so  Tacitus  reports,  and  he  also  remarks  that 
with  the  Germans  songs  took  the  place  of  sober  annals.  But 
the  songs  in  praise  of  Arminius  soon  died  away,  and  no  lasting 
tradition  gathered  round  his  memory. 

The  historical  consciousness  of  the  Germans  dates  from  their 
great  migration,  which  also  gave  life  and  substance  to  their 
heroic  poetry.  The  rich  legends  which  form  the  material  of  great 
national  epics  always  owe  their  origin  to  gigantic  national  con- 
vulsions. It  was  so  with  the  Greeks  and  Indians ;  it  was  so  with 
the  Teutonic  race. 

We  can  distinguish  two  elements,  a  mythological  and  an  his- 
torical, in  the  Germanic  hero-world.     On  the  one  hand  there  are 
gods  who  take  the  form  of  men,  without  descending  altogether 
to   the  level   of  common   humanity;  on   the   other  hand   there 
are  historical  heroes,  whose  greatness  seemed  more 
than  human,  half  divine,  to  the  popular  imagination 
fired   by  the  fame  of  their  exploits.      To  the  first    Cal  element 
class  belong  Siegfried  and  the  fabulous  genealogies,     in  the  old 
through  which  the  German  princely  families  traced  hero-legends 
their  descent  from  Wodan  or  other  gods.     To  the 
second  class   belong  those  names  of   heroic    legend  which    are 


20  Goths  and  Franks.  [Ch.  n. 

attested  by  history,  the  historical  leaders  of  the  national  movement 
against  Rome.  The  German  migration  is  like  a  deluge,  which 
gradually  encroached  on  the  frontiers  of  the  Roman  empire  and 
eventually  submerged  it  entirely.  Internal  weakness,  depopulation, 
dearth  of  talent,  led  the  Romans  to  surrender  one  position  after 
another  to  the  Germans,  who  gradually  came  to  occupy  all  the 
The  German  most  responsible  posts  in  the  state,  from  that  of  the 
Migration,  mercenary  on  the  frontier  to  the  imperial  throne  itself. 
It  was  a  strange  experience  for  these  barbarians,  and  one  which 
must  have  enormously  increased  their  national  pride,  and  stamped 
itself  deeply  on  their  memory.  Their  horizon  was  enlarged ;  the 
individual  acquired  more  importance ;  remarkable  men  arose ;  and 
foreign  civilisation,  mingling  in  countless  ways  with  native  bar- 
barism, called  forth  the  strongest  contrasts.  With  the  growth  of 
their  own  self-consciousness  their  early  heroic  ideals  too  became 
more  and  more  individualised.  They  lost  their  vagueness,  and, 
in  acquiring  variety  and  a  character  of  their  own,  became  genuine 
personal  types  with  distinct  individual  characteristics. 

But  this  is  the  mere  dawn  of  historical  consciousness.  We  are 
still  far  from  exact  history  or  even  from  that  degree  of  faithfulness 
which  we  find  in  the  most  meagre  chronicles.  It  is  partly  the  know- 
ledge that  is  wanting,  partly  the  power  of  exact  observation.  It 
is  true  the  Germans  possessed  runic  writing;  they  attributed 
mysterious  virtue  to  the  letters,  and  used  them  for  casting  lots, 
for  spells,  and  for  short  inscriptions,  but  never  for  historical  annals 
Orally  trans-  or  other  consecutive  records.  The  only  organ  of 
mitted  songs,  tradition  was  unwritten  poetry,  handed  down  by 
memory.  But  in  their  poetry  they  follow  an  idealising  method, 
and  make  it  general  and  mythological.  The  characters  and 
incidents  receive  a  typical  form,  often  far  removed  from  reality. 
The  poets  wandered  from  place  to  place,  taking  the  songs  with 
them,  and  the  story  became  more  vague  the  further  it  was  trans- 
planted from  home.  Exaggeration  could  hardly  be  avoided.  The 
characters  were  mixed  up  and  the  dates  confused.  The  older 
characters  were  absorbed  in  those  of  the  immediate  past,  whose 
figures  thus  assumed  larger  proportions,  and  became  the  centre  of 
various  legends.  Thus  a  cycle  of  stories  gathered  round  a  single 


Ch.  ii.]  The  Heroic  Songs.  21 

name.  The  frequent  coincidence  of  names  rendered  this  con- 
fusion easier ;  and  when  their  great  men  had  been  raised  to  equal 
dignity  with  the  old  heroes,  mythical  and  historical  persons  were 
blended  together,  and  the  cycle  of  legends  became  larger  than 
ever. 

The  traditions  of  German  heroic  poetry  extend  over  more  than 

300  years,  and  are  drawn  from  various  German  tribes. 

Historical 

King  Ostrogotha  reigned  over  the  Goths  about  the  elements  in 
year  250,  and  was  the  contemporary  of  the  emperors  the  heroic 
Philip  and  Decius.  Ermanaric  governed  the  Ostro- 
goths about  100  years  later,  and  was  a  very  warlike  king,  ruling 
over  a  large  extent  of  territory.  The  invasion  of  the  Huns  drove 
him  to  despair,  and  he  fell  by  his  own  hand  before  the  year  374. 
Soon  after  the  year  400  the  Burgundians  founded  a  mighty 
empire  in  the  most  fertile  part  of  the  Upper  Rhine,  where  Caesar 
had  already  fought  with  the  Germans,  near  Spiers,  Worms,  and 
Mayence.  The  Roman  Aetius,  who  ruled  Gaul  with  the  aid  of 
his  Hun  allies,  defeated  the  Burgundians  by  means  of  these  bar- 
barians in  a  terrible  battle  about  the  year  437 ;  20,000  men 
fell,  amongst  them  their  king  Gundicarius  (Gunther).  The  Bur- 
gundians seemed  to  be  annihilated,  and  soon  after  retreated  to 
Savoy.  About  the  same  time  Attila  was  king  of  the  Huns  and 
Ostrogoths,  to  the  terror  of  the  world.  His  name  is  Gothic,  the 
arrangements  of  his  court  were  Gothic,  and  he  reckoned  among 
his  knights  Theodomer,  the  king  of  the  Ostrogoths.  The  West 
had  just  learnt  all  the  terror  of  this  '  Scourge  of  God,'  when  news 
came  of  his  sudden  death  (453),  and  in  the  following  year  his 
followers  succumbed  to  the  attacks  of  the  Germans  (454).  Twenty- 
two  years  later  Odoacer  deposed  the  last  shadow  of  a  Roman  em- 
peror ;  and  again,  twelve  years  later,  Theodoric  led  the  Ostrogoths 
into  Italy  and  Odoacer  fell  by  his  hand.  About  the  same  period 
the  Merovingian  Clovis  founded  the  kingdom  of  the  Franks ;  about 
the  year  530  his  sons  destroyed  the  Thuringian  empire ;  and  his 
grandson  Theodebert  extended  his  kingdom  so  far,  that,  starting 
from  Hungary,  he  planned  an  attack  on  the  Byzantine  emperor. 
The  Merovingians  also  offered  a  successful  resistance  to  the 
Vikings,  who  were  the  terror  of  the  North  Sea,  and  who  appeared 


22  Gotlis  and  Franks.  [Ch.  II. 

even  at  the  mouths  of  the  Rhine.  From  another  quarter  the 
Longobards  in  little  more  than  a  century  reached  Italy,  having 
started  from  Liineburg,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Brunswick,  and 
their  King  Alboin  took  possession  of  the  crown  of  Italy  in  568. 

These  wonderful  transferences  of  power,  and  this  rapid  founding 
Distortion  °f  new  empires,  furnished  the  historical  background 
of  history  of  the  German  hero-legends.  The  fact  that  the  move- 
by  the  poets.  ment  was  originally  against  Rome  was  forgotten ; 
the  migration  was  treated  as  a  mere  incident  in  the  internal 
history  of  the  German  nation.  There  is  no  trace  of  chronology. 
An  English  bard  of  the  eighth  century,  who  transports  himself 
into  the  heroic  period,  says  that  he  has  been  at  Alboin's  court, 
that  Gunther  gave  him  an  arm  ring,  and  that  he  met  Ostrogotha  at 
the  court  of  Ermanaric.  Legend  adheres  to  the  fact  of  the  enmity 
between  Odoacer  and  Theodoric,  but  it  really  confuses  Theodoric 
with  his  father  Theodomer,  transplants  him  accordingly  to  Attila's 
court,  and  supposes  that  he  was  an  exile  there  in  hiding  from  the 
wrath  of  Odoacer.  Attila  becomes  the  representative  of  every 
thing  connected  with  the  Huns.  He  is  regarded  as  Ermanaric's 
and  Gunther's  enemy,  and  as  having  destroyed  the  Burgundians. 
These  again  are  confused  with  a  mythical  race,  the  Nibelungen, 
The  Nibe-  Siegfried's  enemies,  and  thus  arose  the  great  and  com- 
lungen  plicated  scheme  of  the  Nibelungen  legend.  While 
legend.  m  tne  Nibelungen  legend  historical  and  mythical 
elements  are  mingled,  the  Theodoric  legend,  on  the  contrary,  is 
in  its  main  features  historical,  and  the  legend  of  King  Orendel 
affords  an  example  of  pure  myth.  In  the  oldest  version  of  the 
Nibelungen  legend — that,  namely,  which  penetrated  into  the 
North  and  was  there  preserved — Attila  bears  (he  blame  of  the 
slaughter  of  the  Burgundians.  But  as  early  as  the  seventh  cen- 
tury certain  German  songs  related  the  story  in  an  essentially 
different  manner.  In  these  songs  not  Attila,  but  his  wife  Kriem- 
hild,  Siegfried's  widow,  the  sister  of  the  Burgundian  kings,  plans 
the  murder.  In  the  same  version  the  attractive  character  of  the 
Markgrave  Rtidiger  is  introduced  for  .the  first  time  into  the 
legend,  and  it  is  probable  that  this  whole  variation  arose  in 
Austria,  being  connected  wilii  that  general  amplification  of  the 


Ch.  II.]  The  Heroic  Songs.  23 

heroic  song,  which  brought  it  to  its  highest  level  of  perfection 
and  inaugurated  the  first  golden  age  of  German  poetry. 

The  oldest  mythical  legends,  dating  from  a  period  before  the  mi- 
gration, give  us  the  typical  hero  Siegfried,  frank  and  bold,  cut  off  in 
the  bloom  of  his  youth  by  his  wicked  and  perfidious  enemy  Hagen. 

The  oldest  historical  legends,  down  to  about  the  middle  of  the 
fifth  century,  show  us  nothing  but  repulsive  characters,  drawn 
doubtless  from  the  life  of  those  rough  times.  Ermanaric  and 
Attila  represent  the  type  of  the  covetous,  cruel,  ambitious  sove- 
reign. Such  tyrants  have  generally  at  their  side  a  faithless  and 
intriguing  counsellor,  to  whose  influence  the  worst  deeds  of  the 
sovereign  are  attributed.  Sibicho,  the  counsellor  of  Ermanaric, 
became  later  on  in  German  a  by-word  for  faithlessness.  Beside 
him,  we  also  find  in  Ermanaric's  service  Wittich  and  Heime, 
faithless  warriors,  of  cold,  gloomy  nature,  venal  and  cunning, 
shrinking  from  no  expedient,  however  dishonourable. 

A  very  different  type  of  ruler  meets  us  later  on.  Theodoric, 
who  treacherously  destroyed  his  opponent,  but  afterwards  became  a 
beneficent  sovereign,  is  represented  in  the  legend  as  a  man  of  clear 
judgment,  gentle,  yet  strong.  He  is  a  benign  and  just  ruler,  and 
his  banishment  from  throne  and  kingdom  and  home  Milder  cha- 
excites  our  pity.  The  faithless  Sibicho  is  contrasted  racterofthe 
with  a  careful  monitor,  the  faithful  Eckhart.  Faithful  later  legends, 
servants,  like  old  Hildebrand,  play  a  great  part  in  these  later 
legends.  Riidiger  is  animated  in  battle  by  the  noblest  motives, 
and  comes  unsullied  out  of  a  tragic  struggle  of  conflicting  duties. 
Women,  as  in  Gudrun,  become  the  peace-makers  between  families 
at  feud  with  one  another.  Or  else  it  is  a  woman  who  stirs  up 
the  quarrel  and  knows  how  to  make  manly  strength  subservient 
to  her  own  ends.  Attila  loses  his  selfish  cruelty ;  and  whatever 
horrors  Kriemhild  may  be  guilty  of  in  the  later  legend,  she  is 
always  actuated  by  loyalty  to  her  husband,  and  only  fulfils  the 
duty  of  avenging  the  death  of  the  noblest  of  heroes.  Under  all 
circumstances,  we  see  in  the  position  assigned  to  her  a  lofty 
recognition  of  woman's  power.  This  idea  also  reflects  the  life  of 
the  time.  The  history  of  Merovingian  France  tells  of  a  Brunhild 
and  a  Fredegonde,  as  the  history  of  the  Bourbons  tells  of  a 


24  Goths  and  Franks.  [Ch.  II. 

Maintenon  and  a  Pompadour.  The  wives  of  these  Merovingian 
sovereigns  met  with  express  recognition  at  the  hands  of  his- 
torians, as  also  did  the  influence  they  exercised  on  affairs.  In 
countless  deeds  of  horror  a  woman  is  said  to  be  the  cause ;  the 
narrators  seem  accustomed  to  the  question  '  Where  is  the  woman  ? ' 
But  by  the  side  of  these  demon-like  forms,  we  find  another  type 
of  woman,  modest,  chaste,  and  gentle,  who,  although  perhaps  of 
lowly  birth,  may  be  raised  to  the  throne  and  there  spread  blessings 
all  around  her.  It  was  a  rule  of  common  law  that  double  as 
much  wergeld  (blood-money)  should  be  paid  for  the  murder  of 
a  woman  as  for  that  of  a  man ;  and  the  reason  of  this  is  often 
expressly  stated — because  she  cannot  defend  herself  with  weapons. 
To  tear  the  diadem  from  the  head  of  a  young  girl,  or  even  to 
loosen  the  plaits  of  her  hair,  was  according  to  Bavarian  law  to  be 
punished  as  heavily  as  an  attempt  to  poison  a  freeman.  In  many 
other  ways  too  feelings  of  humanity  asserted  themselves.  A 
Gothic  king  of  Spain  is  reported  to  have  exclaimed  after  a  victory, 
'  How  miserable  am  I,  that  so  much  blood  must  flow  in  my  time.' 
It  was  regarded  as  barbarous  not  to  be  willing  to  make  compensa- 
tion for  any  wrong  done.  We  have  instances  of  men  who  made 
it  their  work  in  life  to  buy  and  liberate  slaves.  One  cannot  say 
that  it  is  the  gentleness  of  Christianity  that  is  here  at  work ;  the 
influence  of  Christianity  worked  in  a  very  different  way  in  other 
times.  But  here,  as  in  other  cases,  humanity  and  respect  for 
women  go  hand  in  hand.  Only  in  this  milder  atmosphere  could 
the  heroic  songs  have  developed  their  moral  tendency,  and  the 
grandeur  of  the  epic,  the  delight  in  polished  manners  and  in  elo- 
quent speech,  have  grown  up. 

German  heroic  song  begins  with  the  Goths,  and  ends  with  the 

nations  of  the  Prankish  kingdom.     The  poets  who  first  sang  the 

Poets  at  the   eP'c   songs   to   tndr  harps   belonged   to  the   court. 

court  of      Wandering   minstrels   spread   abroad   the   praise   of 

Attila.       princes,  and  were  the  teachers  of  the   community. 

The  Byzantine  ambassador  Priscus  describes  a  feast  of  Attila  at 

which   he  was   present.      After  the  dinner,  when  it  grew  dark, 

torches  were  lighted,  and  two  men,  who  stood  opposite  to  Attila, 

sang  songs,  in  which  they  celebrated  his  victories  and  warlike 


Ch.  ii.]  The  Heroic  Songs.  25 

virtues.  The  guests  gazed  intently  on  the  singers,  some  delight- 
ing in  the  poems,  others  excited  by  the  thoughts  of  combat  which 
they  inspired,  while  the  aged,  who  could  no  longer  share  in  the 
deeds  of  daring  which  they  loved,  burst  into  tears.  It  is  a  picture 
like  that  of  Ulysses  among  the  Phseacians,  when  Demodokos  sings 
the  deeds  of  the  heroes,  and  Ulysses  hides  his  face  and  weeps.  What 
has  become  of  those  songs  of  Ermanaric,  Attila,  and  Theodoric, 
all  those  poems  which  once  so  strongly  stirred  German  hearts? 

Charlemagne  caused  them  to   be  written  down,  as 

_..  .  Collection 

risistratus   did    the    Homeric   epics.     But   the   next  of  hero-songs 

generation  had  already  forgotten  them.     In  the  ninth  under  Charie- 

century  we  come  again  on  traces  of  them,  after  which  masne»  but 

,         soon  lost, 
they  drop  quite  out  of  sight.     We  must  give  up  the 

collection  of  Charlemagne  as  lost  for  ever :  this  most  important 
record  of  the  German  national  epics  is  destroyed,  and  we  are 
reduced  to  guess-work.  All  we  know  is,  that  the  epic  singer 
appeared  before  his  audience  like  an  orator,  that  he  discarded  the 
traditional  strophic  form,  and  that  his  song  flowed  on  without 
break  through  the  so-called  Long-verses.  He  did  not  sing 
rhythmically,  but  rather  declaimed  in  recitative. 

The  old  picturesque  and  vivid  modes  of  expression,  which  primi- 
tive German  poetry  probably  once  possessed  in  common  with  the 
Aryan,  disappeared  in  the  ballad-like  poetry  which  followed  upon, 
and  celebrated  the  stormy  epoch  of  German  migration ;  and  later 
on,  when  long  narrative  poems  were  revived,  the  old  skill  was  not 
recovered. 

We  possess  in  Germany  itself  but  one  poor  literary  fragment 
from  the  whole  of  this  first  classic  period  of  epic  legend  and  poetry ; 
this  fragment  is  the  song  of  Hildebrand. 

The  aged  Hildebrand  has  gone  with  Theodoric  into  exile  among 
the  Huns.  Years  afterwards  he  returns  to  Italy  at  the  head  of  an 
army  of  Huns.  His  son  Hadubrand  advances  to  op-  The  song  of 
pose  him.  The  poet  begins  abruptly :  '  I  have  heard  Hildebrand. 
that  Hildebrand  and  Hadubrand  challenged  each  other  to  battle.'  It 
seems  as  though  he  were  treating  a  theme  which  he  might  assume 
to  be  generally  known.  Son  and  father  arm  themselves,  and  ride 
to  meet  each  other.  Hildebrand  asks  who  his  opponent  is,  and 


a6  Goths  and  Franks.  [Ch.  n. 

receives  the  answer,  Hadubrand,  son  of  Hildebrand.  Then  a 
second  enquiry  from  Hildebrand  and  a  clearer  answer  from  Hadu- 
brand make  it  plain  to  the  old  man  that  his  opponent  is  his  own 
son.  He  tries  to  avoid  the  combat,  tells  his  name,  and  offers 
bracelets  as  presents.  Hadubrand  rejects  them  with  disdain,  and 
takes  the  old  man  for  a  crafty  deceiver,  who  only  wishes  to  entice 
him  on  within  range  of  his  spear.  As  for  his  father,  he  has  heard 
that  he  was  killed  in  battle.  Hildebrand  still  tries  to  pacify  him. 
He  sees,  indeed,  that  Hadubrand  does  not  need  his  gifts,  for  he 
wears  beautiful  armour,  and  no  doubt  has  a  generous  master ;  but 
he  tries  to  induce  him  to  seek  out  another  opponent  such  as  he 
can  easily  find  in  the  army  of  the  Huns,  quite  as  distinguished  as 
himself.  Then  Hadubrand  taunts  him  with  cowardice,  and  this 
he  cannot  bear ;  he  sees  he  must  fight,  and  laments  in  despair  the 
cruelty  of  his  fate  which  dooms  him,  after  thirty  years  of  wandering, 
and  after  a  thousand  escapes,  either  to  be  slain  by  his  own  son,  or 
to  become  that  son's  murderer.  Here  the  combat  begins  ;  they 
dash  against  each  other  with  couched  spears,  which  glance  off 
from  the  shields ;  then  they  dismount,  and  with  their  swords  hack 
each  other's  shields  in  pieces.  The  conclusion  of  the  poem  is 
lost.  We  may  suppose  that  the  old  man  conquered,  and  stood 
over  the  dead  body  of  his  son.  He  had  destroyed  his  own  race. 

The  poet  knows  how  to  place  his  subject  before  us  in  the  most 
impressive  manner.  He  takes  little  interest  in  the  outward  inci- 
dents. He  just  describes  the  arming  of  the  two  combatants,  but 
in  the  fewest  words  possible.  He  goes  straight  to  the  point  which 
seems  to  him  the  most  important.  What  he  delights  in  is  the  de- 
velopment of  question  and  answer.  He  tells  us  specially  that 
Hildebrand  was  the  first  to  speak,  because  he  was  the  worthiest 
and  the  oldest.  He  knows  that  it  is  an  advantage  in  narrating 
long  speeches  that  they  should  be  interrupted  or  accompanied  by 
action :  he  therefore  introduces  the  episode  of  the  bracelets,  which 
Hildebrand  takes  from  his  own  arms  and  offers  to  his  opponent. 

Apart  from  its  mere  technical  excellence  the  dialogue  is  so 
skilfully  handled,  that  we  perceive  at  once  the  character,  the 
coming  destiny,  and  the  tragic  end  of  the  human  beings  who 
take  part  in  it.  The  poet  has  reproduced  the  nal've  manners  of 


Ch.  ii.]  The  Heroic  Songs.  27 

a  childlike  age,  in  which  men  are  allowed  to  praise  themselves,  in 
which  possessions,  presents,  booty,  are  the  objects  of  an  undis- 
guised selfish  cupidity.  Hildebrand  parades  his  own  extensive 
acquaintance  with  men.  The  prize  of  battle  is  the  armour  of  the 
vanquished ;  ornaments  are  offered  to  soften  the  stubborn  temper 
of  the  opponent.  The  poet  not  only  knows  how  to  introduce 
without  effort  a  number  of  facts  which  lie  outside  the  frame- 
work of  the  story,  but  he  also  understands  the  art  of  developing 
character,  and  of  making  speeches  and  actions  its  natural  out- 
come. Hildebrand  is  the  picture  of  old  age  as  Hadubrand  is  of 
youth.  The  former  is  cautious,  deliberate,  prudent ;  the  latter  is 
hasty,  eager  for  combat,  suspicious,  and  obstinate.  The  answers 
which  Hildebrand  receives  to  his  cautiously  put  questions  have  the 
effect  of  forcing  on  him  still  further  caution.  But  in  order  that  we 
may  entertain  no  doubt  of  his  valour,  Hadubrand,  who  suspects  the 
courage  of  his  foe,  is  made  to  allege  that  his  father  was  always 
too  fond  of  fighting.  Tragic  irony  could  not  go  further  than  in 
this  admirable  contrast  between  father  and  son ;  between  the 
father  who  knows  his  son,  and  the  son  who  knows  not  his  father ; 
the  father  striving  to  reveal  his  kinship,  the  son  repudiating  it ;  the 
father  filled  with  love  for  the  son  before  him,  the  son  full  of  affec- 
tion and  admiration  for  the  father  whom  he  believes  to  be  dead ; 
and  the  two  engaged  in  mortal  conflict  with  one  another. 

Hildebrand  is  decidedly  the  hero  of  the  poem.  His  whole  early 
history  is  touched  upon.  Our  pity  is  excited  for  him,  so  long  sepa- 
rated from  his  family,  and  now,  at  the  risk  of  dishonour,  forced  to 
engage  in  mortal  conflict  with  the  man  whom  he  knows  to  be  his 
own  son.  Yet  the  poet  utters  no  word  of  sympathy,  he  works  on 
us  only  by  a  bare  statement  of  the  facts  in  the  formal  style  which 
he  has  adopted.  Hildebrand's  cry  of  despair  when  the  fight  is  in- 
evitable, stands  alone  in  the  poem  :  in  this  cry  the  unspeakable 
anguish  of  the  father's  heart  is  concentrated.  The  fearful  mental 
struggle,  the  fearful  deed  which  must  be  done  under  the  imperious 
demands  of  honour — these  are  the  chief  ideas  which  filled  the  ima- 
gination of  the  poet.  He  thus  evidences  the  moral  spirit  of  the  old 
heroic  songs.  Small  as  is  the  fragment  left  to  us,  it  is  a  noble  fruit, 
and  from  it  we  may  infer  the  grandeur  of  the  tree  which  bore  it. 


28  Goths  and  Franks.  [Ch.  II. 

ULFILAS. 

At  the  very  time  when  heroic  song  was  taking  a  higher  flight, 

Christianity  began  to  exert  its  influence  on  the  Germanic  nations. 

Influence  of  ^ne  ^atest  legends  have  nothing  heathen  about  them, 

Christianity  and  when  we  find  that  in  these  legends  women  play 

on  German    an  important  part,  we  must  remember  that  at  this  time 

pious  women  were  already  contributing  as  nuns  to  the 

sanctification  of  life.     At  the  king's  court  the  monk  now  stands 

side  by  side  with  the  minstrel.     The  forms  of  the  old  gods  fade 

before  the  image  of  the  Crucified.     The  migration  began  with  the 

Goths.    Among  them  heroic  song  first  sprang  up,  and 

they  were  also  the  first  converts  to  Christianity.    The 

Goths  were  the  most  advanced  of  the  old  German  tribes.     Their 

brief  career  foreshadowed  the  later  and  fuller  development  of  the 

Franks.   Nay,  the  problems  which  the  Goths  had  to  face  were  such 

as  have  occupied  men's  minds  both  in  the  middle  ages  and  in 

modern  times,  and  they  recur  again  and  again  throughout  German 

history.     These  problems  are  imperial  power,  the  religious  training 

of  the  people,  toleration  of  nationalities  and  of  creeds. 

Heroic  song  began  with  the  Ostrogoths ;  but  it  was  the  Visigoths 
who  were  first  converted  to  Christianity.     We  can  only  guess  at 
the  causes  which  influenced  the  people  to  forsake  their  old  gods. 
The  most  important  was  the  migration  itself,  and  the 
changed  conditions  which  arose  from  the  total  change 
quences  of   of  locality.     To  leave  their  homes,  to  leave  the  sanc- 
the  migra-    tuary  of  their  tribe,  where  they  assembled  for  their 
religious  festivals,  and  the  sacred  groves  in  which  the 
gods  dwelt, — this  in  itself  was  a  great  wrench.     A  time  of  great 
deeds,  but  also  of  great  suffering  ensued.     The  excitement  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  might  nerve  and  elevate  the  hearts  of  king  and 
nobles,  yet  the  mass  of  the  people  were  without  doubt  exposed  to 
extreme  distress.     They  invoked  the  old  gods,  and  finding  no 
succour   began   to   lose   faith   in  them.      Why   should    they  not 
try  the  new  gods,  to  whom  the  Greeks  and  Romans  raised  in- 
numerable churches  and  altars,  the  gentle  and  merciful  God,  the 
God  of  the  poor  and  needy,  who  had  Himself  suffered  the  greatest 


Ch.  ii.]  Ulfilas.  29 

indignities  ?  Even  the  Roman  emperor  bowed  before  this  God ;  and 
He  must  surely  be  the  most  powerful  Deity  to  whom  the  emperor 
himself  could  appeal  for  help.  While  these  were  probably  the 
feelings  of  the  people,  their  chiefs,  on  the  other  hand,  had  good 
political  reasons  for  offering  homage  to  the  God  of  the  Byzantine 
empire;  they  might  thus  acquire  land  and  gain  favour  with  the 
emperor.  So  the  vigilant  Christian  missionaries  found  ready 
listeners  in  chiefs  and  people. 

The  Visigoths  were  the  tribe  most  closely  connected  with  the 
Empire  of  the  East.  In  the  great  struggle  between  Arius  and 
Athanasius,  which  agitated  the  Church  in  the  fourth  century,  the 
imperial  power  inclined  for  a  time  to  the  side  of  Arianism.  Con- 
stantius  in  particular,  the  son  of  Constantine  the  Great,  favoured 
this  more  easily  comprehensible  form  of  church  doctrine,  and  the 
Eastern  bishops  of  that  time  were  mostly  Arian  in  their  opinions. 

The  form  of  Christianity  therefore  which  lay  nearest  to  the 
Goths  was  Arianism.  Thus  it  was  that  at  the  Synod  uifilas, 
of  Antioch  in  the  year  341,  the  Arian  Wulfila  or  circa  350. 
Ulfilas,  as  the  Greeks  call  him,  was  consecrated  bishop  of  the 
Goths,  that  is  of  the  Visigoths  to  the  north  of  the  lower  Danube. 
Ulfilas  was  about  thirty  years  old.  He  was  no  ordinary  theo- 
logian of  the  time:  he  had  not  been  spoilt  by  the  schools  of 
the  rhetors.  We  possess  his  later  confession  of  His 
faith,  in  which  he  attempts  to  modify  the  doctrine  of  Arianism. 
the  Trinity  in  the  direction  of  a  simple  monotheism, — a  striking 
proof  of  the  freshness  and  vigour  of  his  understanding.  Seven 
years  after  his  consecration  misfortune  befel  the  young  commu- 
nity. The  new  religion  roused  the  suspicion  of  the  Gothic  king, 
and  a  bloody  persecution  followed.  The  emperor  Constantius 
allowed  the  survivors  to  emigrate  to  Moesia,  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Nicopolis,  not  far  from  the  Hasmus  mountains.  These  emigrants 
were  called  the  Little  Goths.  Ulfilas  laboured  among  them  till  his 
death.  He  died  in  381  in  Constantinople,  whither  he  had  gone 
bo  defend  the  doctrines  of  Arius.  When  he  led  the  emigrants 
over  the  Danube  in  348,  he  seemed  to  his  contemporaries  a 
second  Moses  at  the  head  of  his  people.  By  his  hand,  as  a  bio- 
grapher expresses  it,  God  had  wrought  for  the  followers  of  His 


30  Goths  and  Franks.  [Ch.  n. 

only-begotten  Son,  to  deliver  them  from  the  hand  of  the  bar- 
barians, just  as  formerly  He  saved  His  people,  through  Moses, 
from  the  hand  of  the  Egyptians,  and  led  them  through  the  Red 
Sea.  And  in  fact  Ulfilas  stands  alone  in  the  history  of  the  conversion 
of  the  Germanic  tribes.  He  is  in  the  sphere  of  religion  what 
Theodoric  the  Great  is  in  the  sphere  of  politics.  At  one  moment 
the  Ostrogoths  are  a  homeless  people;  a  few  years  elapse  and 
they  are  reigning  in  Italy,  their  king  becomes  the  successor  of  the 
Roman  emperors,  and  endeavours  to  enter  upon  the  whole  in- 
heritance of  Roman  politics  and  Roman  power.  He  and  his 
people  appropriated  at  one  stroke  all  that  Rome  had  attained  to 
in  political  knowledge  and  statecraft.  The  highest  ideal  known 
to  declining  Rome  in  the  intellectual  sphere  was  Christianity, 
and  the  possession  of  the  Bible  has  the  same  significance  in  the 
intellectual  and  religious  sphere  that  the  possession  of  Italy  and 
Rome  has  in  the  political.  The  former,  Ulfilas  by  one  effort 
secured  to  the  Visigoths.  He  was  master  of  three  languages: 
he  preached  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  Gothic ;  and  he  devoted  this 
gift  to  the  noblest  purpose.  He  is  reported  to 
tion  of  the  nave  translated  the  whole  Bible,  only  omitting  the 
Bible  into  Books  of  the  Kings  as  likely  to  encourage  the 
°'  warlike  propensities  of  his  people.  This  transla- 
tion he  effected  for  those  who  were  till  then  destitute  of  the  first 
beginnings  of  a  written  literature.  Nay,  till  he  taught  them,  the 
Goths  did  not  even  know  what  reading  meant,  and  Ulfilas  had 
to  translate  the  word  by  '  singing.'  He  created  a  style  of  writing 
which  could  be  painted  on  parchment  for  a  people  who  till  then 
had  only  scrawled  single  signs,  or  a  few  consecutive  words  on 
wood  or  stone.  He  formed  his  alphabet  by  supplementing  the 
Runes  from  the  Greek  alphabet,  or  the  Greek  alphabet  from  the 
Runes.  The  translation  is  a  literal  reproduction  in  Gothic  of  the 
Greek  text.  He  united  the  greatest  reverence  for  the  holy  Book, 
with  a  due  regard  for  the  laws  of  his  native  language.  The 
language  itself  here  came  to  his  aid ;  the  Gothic  syntax  stood  in 
closer  relationship  to  the  Greek  than  modern  or  even  old  German 
stands  to  the  Gothic.  Ulfilas  had  doubtless  fellow-workers ;  the 
few  remaining  fragments  of  the  Old  Testament  show  a  different 


Ch.  II.]  Ulfilas.  31 

hand  from  the  Gospels,  and  these  again  from  the  remains  of  the 
Pauline  Epistles.  But  the  idea,  the  example,  the  supervision,  the 
merit,  are  his. 

Ulfilas  did  not  write  for  the  Little  Goths  alone.  The  entire  con- 
version of  the  Visigoths  was,  notwithstanding  the  -^Me  extent 
first  persecution,  only  a  question  of  time  ;  and  the  con-  of  German 
version  of  the  Visigoths  was  destined  to  react  upon  -A-riamsm. 
a  large  number  of  Germanic  tribes.  All  the  tribes  of  the  Eastern 
branch  were  gradually  drawn  under  the  influence  of  Arianism. 
So  it  was  with  the  Ostrogoths,  with  the  Heruli,  Skiri  and  Rugii 
of  Austria  and  Bavaria,  and  also  with  the  Vandals  in  Spain. 
Even  the  Burgundians,  who  had  formerly  been  Roman  Chris- 
tians, inclined  for  a  time  towards  Arianism,  and  the  less  closely 
related  Longobards  seem,  while  they  ruled  on  the  Danube,  to  have 
superficially  adopted  Arianism,  after  the  example  of  their  Austrian 
neighbours. 

We  may  assume  that  the  Gothic  Bible  and  the  intellectual 
power  of  Ulfilas  reached  as  far  as  the  limits  of  German  Arianism. 
No  German  of  Catholic  persuasion  ever  attempted  anything  like  it. 
Wycliffe  in  England,  and  Luther  in  Germany,  are  the  first  who  can 
be  compared  with  him.  The  partial  or  complete  translations 
which  arose  before  Wycliffe  and  Luther  suffered  from  two  causes : 
firstly,  from  the  exaggerated  respect  felt  for  Latin  as  the  sacred 
language ;  secondly,  from  the  papal  decrees,  which  later  on  forbade 
the  use  of  the  Bible. 

What  we  possess  in  the  Gothic  language  besides  the  Bible  is 
insignificant.     It  consists  of  an  interpretation  of  St. 
John's   Gospel   founded  on  Greek  commentaries,  a    rary  frag- 
fragment  of  a  Gothic  Calendar,  a  few  documents,  at-     mentsin 
tested  by  Gothic  priests  in  Gothic,  a  Gothic  toast  in      Gothic- 
a   Latin    epigram,  and   a  few  isolated  words  in  Latin  writings. 
Probably  the  written  literature  was  confined  to  the  careful  copy- 
ing and  faithful  rendering  of  the  Bible,  or  to  the  amending  and 
altering  of  the  sacred  text.     These  alterations  consisted  in  changes 
based  on  the  authority  of  a  Latin  translation  or  in  the  addition  of 
synonyms  and  the  choice  of  fresh  expressions.     But  even  when 
writers  advanced  to  commentaries,  they  still  kept  within  the  lines 


32  Goths  and  Franks.  [Ch.  n. 

which  Ulfilas  had  laid  down.  The  MSS.  which  have  been  pre- 
served are  probably  of  Italian  origin :  the  most  valuable  of  all,  the 
famous  '  Codex  argenteus '  at  Upsala,  in  silver  letters  on  purple 
parchment,  may  have  been  in  the  possession  of  the  Ostrogothic 
kings  themselves. 

In  the  territory  of  the  Skiri  and  Rugii,  the  progenitors  of  the 
Austro-Bavarian  race,  we  find  in  the  ninth  century  in  a  Salzburg 
MS.  traces  of  a  knowledge  of  the  Gothic  alphabet  and  Bible. 
And  it  is  evident  that  isolated  ecclesiastical  words,  such  as  Heide 
(heathen),  Pfaffe  (priest),  Kirche  (church),  were  first  coined  in 
Gothic,  and  thence  passed  into  the  German  language,  where  they 
still  survive.  Thus  the  German  language  has  received  at  least 
some  small  legacy  from  Gothic  Arianism,  although  the  Arian 
churches  themselves  have  all  perished. 

The  chief  enemy  which  those  tribes  which  had  embraced 
Arianism  had  to  contend  against  was  the  Roman  Church.  They 
succumbed  before  the  opposition  of  this  and  other  hostile  elements. 
But  the  Bible  of  Ulfilas  has  acquired  an  entirely  new  importance. 
Franciscus  Junius  printed  and  published  it  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  after  Jacob  Grimm  in  the  nineteenth  had  made  it  the  basis  of 
the  comparative  grammar  of  all  the  Teutonic  languages,  it  became 
the  true  key  to  German  antiquity.  Ulfilas  is  our  best  guide  to  the 
secrets  of  German  primitive  times ;  he  alone  has  survived  his  whole 
people.  The  Gothic  songs  which  once  formed  the  centre  of  our 
heroic  legends,  the  songs  of  Ostrogotha,  Ermanaric,  Theodomer, 
and  Theodoric,  have  long  since  died  away ;  the  Gothic  Bible,  in 
its  noble  fragments,  lives  on,  a  sacred  relic,  unchanged,  and  now 
imperishable. 

THE  MEROVINGIANS. 

The  more  roving  and  warlike  of  the  German   tribes   showed 
Christian-    tnemselves  tne  most  ready  to  embrace  Christianity; 
iaingofthe    they  had  been  uprooted,  and  their  heaihen  traditions 
German      shaken.     Rome,  though  conquered  in  the  field,  be- 
came intellectually  the  mistress  of  her  conquerors. 
The  rule  of  the  emperors  came  to  an  end,  that  of  the  popes  was 
gradually  established.     The  Arian  phase  of  German  faith  was  fol- 


Ch.  II.]  The  Merovingians.  33 

lowed  by  a  Roman  Catholic  one,  at  least  among  the  Franks, 
Alemanni,  Anglo-Saxons,  and  Bavarians,  who  had  all  distinguished 
themselves  in  the  famous  German  movement  against  Rome.  The 
more  stationary  Hessians,  Thuringians,  and  Frisians,  held  out  for 
a  long  time ;  the  Saxons  were  converted  by  force,  after  a  weary 
struggle,  towards  the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  while  with  the 
Scandinavians  the  process  of  conversion  began  later,  and  was  still 
more  arduous. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century  the  songs  concerning  Sieg- 
fried and  Attila  spread  as  far  as  Scandinavia,  but  after  that  period 
the  various  German  tribes  became  more  and  more  separated  from 
each  other.  The  wide  influence  exercised  by  Theodoric  did  not 
descend  to  his  successors.  Under  the  Merovingian  dynasty  the 

Franks  took  up  the  task  of  consolidation,  and  com- 

11    j     i          11        r      •  ,  11  i    ^       i     f~,  The  Franks, 

pelled  the  whole  of  middle  and  South  Germany  to 

acknowledge  their  supremacy.  The  ground  was  thus  prepared  for 
fresh  conversions.  The  Christianity  of  the  Franks,  which  was  due 
to  accidental  causes,  was  not  of  a  very  strict  character.  The 
clergy  were  drawn  into  secular  life.  No  vigorous  opposition  was 
offered  to  the  remnants  of  heathenism,  nor  was  literature  employed 
in  support  of  religion.  The  Merovingian  period,  which  brought 
German  popular  heroic  song  to  perfection,  cannot  point  to  a  single 
literary  document  in  the  German  language.  No  Ulfilas  arose;  no 
missionaries  were  sent  out.  The  example  of  proselytism  had  to  be 
first  set  from  outside,  by  a  small  people,  which  now  for  the  first 
and  only  time  exerted  its  influence  on  the  intellectual  development 
of  Europe,  i.e.  the  Irish. 

In  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  St.  Patrick  brought  Chris- 
tianity to  the  Irish  from  Scotland,  and  the  Irish  monasteries  became 
a  centre  of  civilisation  and  Christian  missions,  independent  of  Rome, 
and  often  directly  opposed  to  her.     They  sent  forth  Columbanus, 
an  apostle  full  of  zeal,  and  yet  of  liberal  views.     He     j^sh  rc^A. 
recommended  the  study  of  the  ancient  poets  just  as      sions  in 
much  as  that  of  the  early  fathers  of  the  church,  and     G-ermany. 
quoted  the  authority  of  Juvenal,  as  lending  support  to  the  Gospel 
maxims.     He  himself  wrote  in  old  Greek  metre,  and  was  well 
versed   in   classical   literature  and   mythology.     The    maxims   of 

D 


34  Goths  and  Franks.  [ch.  n. 

life  which  he  gives  to  his  monks  are  fit  for  a  brotherhood  of 
philosophers. 

This  Columbanus  became  in  the  seventh  century  the  Apostle  of 
the  Alemanni.  His  disciple,  Gallus,  founded  the  monastery  of  St. 
Gall.  They  were  followed  by  many  others  of  their  countrymen, 
whose  zeal  roused  the  emulation  of  the  Prankish  clergy,  and 
prepared  the  way  for  the  conversion  of  the  Bavarians  and 
Thuringians.  The  Merovingian  empire  thus  became  on  the 
whole  a  Christian  empire.  But  down  to  the  eighth  century,  to  the 
time  of  St.  Boniface,  all  strict  church  discipline  was  wanting. 
Christianity  was  only  one  element  of  civilisation  by  the  side  of  others, 
and  did  not  yet  claim  the  exclusive  dominion  over  men's  minds. 
German  heroic  song  attained  at  this  time  its  highest  develop- 
ment. 

In  the  matter  of  poetic  form,  Germany  was  indebted  to  the 

Romanic  nations:     it   was  from    them  that  German 
.Rhyme,  a 

product  of  poetry  received  the  ornament  of  rhyme.  We  find 
the  Romanic  the  first  traces  of  rhyme  in  Germany  in  the  ninth  cen- 
tury ;  but  then  it  is  already  used  to  adorn  Christian 
hymns  which  were  meant  to  supplant  the  popular  songs.  It  is 
most  probable  that  rhyme  had  been  employed  for  some  time  in 
the  popular  songs,  for  the  writers  of  these  early  Christian  hymns 
would  hardly  have  made  the  strange  matter  of  their  poetry  yet 
more  strange  by  clothing  it  in  an  unaccustomed  form.  As  epic 
poetry  with  its  stately  alliterative  verses  gradually  disappeared,  rhyme 
came  more  and  more  into  fashion.  But  it  first  found  its  way  to 
Germany  from  outside. 

Popular  Latin  poetry  had  long  employed  nothing  but  rhyme. 
The  Christian  hymns,  intended  to  be  sung  by  the  masses,  adopted 
the  same  form.  It  is  also  found  in  Irish  poetry,  and  all  the  Romanic 
nations,  the  Northern  and  Southern  French,  the  Spaniards,  and 
Italians  submit  to  its  fetters.  This  melodious,  sensuous  adornment 
was  evidently  a  product  of  that  obscure  epoch  which  laid  the 
foundations  of  mediaeval  life.  It  came  to  Germany  through  the 
medium  of  music,  and  German  poetry  could  not  resist  its  influence. 
Attractive  Italian  or  French  melodies  wandered  to  Germany, 
and  German  poets  set  German  words  to  them',  as  the  Minnesanger 


Ch.  ii.]  7&?  Merovingians.  35 

and  the  poets  of  the  Renaissance  did  in  later  periods.     And  with 
these  melodies,  songs,  and  dances  there  also  came  rhyme.     We  find 
it  first  of  all  on  the  Upper  Rhine,  from  whence  it  spread  over  the 
rest  of  Germany.     The  fact  that  rhyme  is  found  in  German  poetry 
is  as  substantial  a  proof  of  the  early  influence  of  Romanic  culture, 
as  the  foreign  words  used  in  German  to  designate  influence  Of 
wine-culture  and  house-building,  words  which  came     Romanic 
into  the  German  language  at  about  the  same  period   civilisation 
as  the  introduction  of  rhyme.     This  points  to  a  dis-  on     ei 
languishing  feature  of  the  first  classical  period  of  German  literature, 
and  one  which  recurs  again  in  the  second  and  third  classical  periods, 
— it  was  the  Romanic  nations  who  shaped  the  aesthetic  sense  of 
the  Germans. 

Yet  another  event  belonging  to  this  epoch  continues  to  exert  its  in- 
fluence to  the  present  day,  and  is  one  of  the  most  important  incidents 

of  German  history  :  I  refer  to  the  dialectal  separation 

i  ««'.«*  ,"•  Separation 

between  South  and  North  German,  which  must  have  of  nigh-  and 

begun  about  the  year  600.     Then  arose  the  still  exist-  Low-German 

ing  difference  between  High-  and  Low-German  dialects,      dialects, 
A   u  v!      circa  600. 

and  there  was  no  educated  language,  no  literary  speech 

to  bridge  over  the  gulf.  Two  German  languages  were  formed, 
and  those  who  spoke  them  might  easily  have  separated  into  two 
nations. 

Low-German  dat  and  wal,  by  the  side  of  High-German  das  and 
was ;  Low-German  ick  instead  of  ich,  open  instead  of  offen,  the 
modern  Berlinese  duhn  instead  of  thun;  these  and  countless  similar 
consonantal  differences  place  Low  German  on  the  same  level  as 
Dutch,  English,  Danish,  Swedish,  and  Norwegian.  And  all  these 
languages  have  really  kept  to  the  original  form  of  Germanic  speech, 
while  High  German  has  separated  itself  from  this  common  founda- 
tion. At  first  it  was  only  a  separate  dialect,  but  afterwards,  when 
used  as  the  literary  language,  it  slowly  gained  a  sure  supremacy. 
The  movement  seems  to  have  originated  in  the  mountainous  dis- 
tricts. The  Alemanni,  the  Bavarians,  and  Longobards,  were  the  first 
to  fall  under  its  influence;  the  Franks,  Hessians,  and  Thuringians 
were  only  gradually  drawn  into  it.  Lower  down  the  Rhine  it  was  less 
powerful,  and  the  Netherlands  remained  entirely  untouched. 

D  a 


36  Goths  and  Franks,  [Ch.  n. 

Jacob  Grimm  has  given  the  name  of  Old  High  German  to  the 
language  which  thus  arose,  and  which  continued  to  develop  down  to 
the  eleventh  century.  And  if  we  enquire  what  were  the  causes  of  this 

Old  High     consonantal  change,  or  'Lautverschiebung'  as  Grimm 

German.  ca]is  [^  we  shall  find  an  answer  in  the  general  character 
of  the  Old  High-German  dialect.  Among  all  the  Teutonic  languages, 
whether  of  older  or  more  modern  times,  none  can  compare  for  melody 
with  this  dialect,  as  seen  in  the  rhyming  poets  of  the  ninth  century. 
The  cold,  serious,  sober  ninth  century  is  here  using  an  instrument 
bequeathed  to  it  by  an  older,  gentler,  and  more  aesthetic  age.  The 
language  was  rich  in  vowels,  melodious  and  plastic  as  Italian,  and 
therefore  in  its  very  nature  suited  to  rhyme.  But  the  delight  in 
vowels  led  to  the  neglect  of  the  consonants.  The  immoderate 
striving  after  euphony  dissolved  the  firmer  elements  of  words, 
and  this  was  the  real  origin  of  the  change  of  consonants  in  High 
German. 

This  separation  of  High  German  has  exercised  a  momentous 
influence  in  German  literature  and  German  history.  To  it  may  be 
attributed  in  great  measure  the  difficulty  which  the  Germans  have 
found  in  creating  a  united  national  literature  and  culture.  For 
centuries  all  German  poetry  could  only  count  upon  a  local  and 
limited  public ;  and  even  to  the  present  day  the  people  of  the 
various  provinces  are  more  abruptly  divided  from  each  other  than 
elsewhere,  South  Germans  and  North  Germans  in  particular 
standing  in  many  respects  in  sharp  contrast. 

It  was  the  subjection  of  the  Saxons  by  Charlemagne  which  hindered 
the  High  and  Low  Germans  from  becoming  two  nations.  The  cruel 
propagation  of  the  Christian  faith  was  in  the  end  an  advantage  to 
the  German  nation.  The  giant  will  which  kept  together  Italy,  Gaul, 
and  Germany,  also  united  Saxons,  Franks,  Hessians,  Thuringians, 
Alemanni,  and  Bavarians.  At  the  same  time  the  Germanic 
element  in  the  empire  was  strengthened  by  the  addition  of  the 
Saxons.  More  regard  was  now  paid  to  the  kinship  of  races,  as 
may  be  seen  from  the  division  of  the  empire  among  the  sons 
of  Louis  the  Pious.  At  Strassburg,  on  February  14,  842,  the 
Western  Franks  under  Charles  the  Bald  took  their  oath  in  French, 
while  the  Eastern  Franks  under  Louis  the  German  took  theirs  in 


Ch.  ii.]  The  Merovingians.  ,  37 

German.  And  the  German  Empire,  strictly  speaking,  only  began 
to  exist  after  the  Treaty  of  Verdun  in  843. 

The  mother-tongue  of  Charlemagne  was  High  German  ;  he  him- 
self, his  family,  and  his  court,  spoke  mostly  High  German,  and  it  is 
to  this  circumstance  that  the  High-German  dialect  owes  that  supre- 
macy which  it  has  asserted  since  then  almost  without  interruption. 
Under  Charlemagne  we  first  find  the  expression  'deutsch,'  i.e.  popular 
(from  deot,  people),  used  to  designate  the  popular  language  of 
German  origin  in  distinction  to  Latin  and  the  Romance  languages. 

The  consciousness  of  German  nationality  first  asserted  itself 
at  the  time  of  the  revival  of  the  Empire  of  the  West  under 
Charlemagne. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  OLD   HIGH-GERMAN  PERIOD. 

UNDER  Charlemagne  we  come  to  the  first  connected  records  in 
the  German  language,  and  these  seem  to  have  been  called  forth  by 
The  Anglo-  the  needs  of  Christian  teaching.     Under  his  succes- 
Saxons.     sors  complete  Christian  poems  were  produced.     But 
in  all  this  the  Franks,  Saxons,  and  other  German  tribes  only  fol- 
lowed in  the  steps  of  another  Germanic  people,  who  led  the  way 
both  by  their  example  and  direct  influence  — the  Anglo-Saxons. 
Before  St.  Columbanus  crossed  to  the  continent,  the  Roman  Church 
had  gained  a  strong  footing  in  the  same  corner  of  Europe  from 
which  the  Irish  missions  had  started. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  seventh  century  Pope  Gregory  the  Great 
succeeded  in  winning  over  the  Anglo-Saxons  to  Christianity.     Nu- 
merous learned  and  poetical  works  bear  witness  to  the  extraordinary 
talent  of  this  people.   Their  popular  epic,  the  'Beowulf/ 
gives  the  story  of  a  noble  hero  who  came  to  succour 
foreigners  in  distress,  fought  victoriously  with  destructive  water- 
demons,  was  crowned  by  his  people,  and  finally  succumbed  in  a 
fight  with  a  dragon.    Into  this  framework  are  woven  varied  pictures 
of  life,  marked  by  the  true  epic  love  for  full  details  of  manners, 
speech,  and  modes  of  warfare.     The  same  creative  power  which  is 
here  displayed  in  the  treatment  of  a  national  legend  also  exercised 
itself  on  the  new  materials  offered  by  Christianity.    In 
Bede  the  Anglo-Saxons  possessed  a  scholar  of  the 
first  order  who  had  mastered  the  whole  science  of  his  time,  and 
embodied   it   in  various  school-books  which   soon   became  very 
popular. 

In  Aldhelm  they  had  a  Latin  poet  of  much  feeling  and  refine- 
ment.    Caedmon  is  named  as  the  oldest  Anglo-Saxon  Christian 


Ch.  in.]  The  Anglo-Saxons.  39 

poet  who  wrote  in  the  vulgar  tongue ;  Cynewulf  is  known  to  us  by 
various  excellent  works.  Grand  paraphrases  in  Old  English  verse 
of  parts  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  are  still  extant,  as  well  as 
wonderful  legends,  like  Cynewulf's  '  Andreas/  in  which  the  union 
of  Christianity  with  the  spirit  of  the  popular  epic  produces  noble 
effects.  It  was  this  circle  of  life  and  culture  that  sent  out  St. 

Boniface.    He  was  no  Bede  :  he  was  a  man  of  narrow 

..,„,.  .11  j   St.  Boniface, 

spirit  and  small  education,  but  certainly  a  hero,  and 

well  fitted  to  realise  the  ideal  of  a  Christian  apostle  and  martyr. 
He  was  quite  different  from  St.  Columbanus,  whose  fellow-country- 
men he  persecuted  everywhere  in  Germany  ;  he  even  accused  them 
to  the  Pope,  because  they  held  such  fearful  heresies  as  belief  in  the 
roundness  of  the  earth,  and  the  existence  of  the  antipodes.  He  is 
the  representative  of  a  different  nationality,  a  different  church  sys- 
tem, a  different  age.  He  did  not  make  many  new  converts  among 
the  Germans,  but  held  the  reins  tight  over  those  already  converted. 
He  was  inexorable  in  rooting  out  all  traces  of  heathen  worship, 
and  also  set  his  face  against  all  the  more  liberal  elements  of  Chris- 
tianity. He  established  a  regular  system  of  sacerdotal  rule,  and 
put  all  under  the  dominion  of  Rome. 

Charlemagne,  with  his   great  love  of  power  and  care  for  his 
people,  continued  in  his  church  policy  the  work  which  Boniface  had 

begun,  and  in  this  the  Anglo-Saxon  Alcuin  was  his  _. 

Charlemagne 

most  trusty  counsellor.  Charlemagne's  decrees  of  and  the  first 
the  year  789  were  intended  to  insure  outward  unifor-  German 
mity  in  matters  of  religion,  and  called  forth  the  first  pro 
German  prose  writings,  translations  of  the  baptismal  vow,  of 
the  Creeds,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  Confessions.  These  again 
gave  rise  to  other  literature,  chiefly  of  a  religious  character,  but 
merely  borrowed  from  the  Latin ;  many  of  these  translations  show 
a  remarkable  and  quickly  acquired  facility,  and  they  were  a  great 
aid  in  the  composition  of  sermons  which  Charlemagne  demanded 
from  the  clergy  by  decisive  injunctions.  Little  was  done  towards 
acquiring  a  complete  German  Bible.  People  only  cared  to  possess 
the  life  of  Christ,  for  which  one  gospel  was  enough.  That 
according  to  St.  Matthew,  which  was  selected  for  the  purpose,  was 
reproduced  in  a  translation  at  once  beautiful  and  impressive.  At 


40  The  Old  High-German  Period.  [Ch.  in. 

the  same  time  poetry  was  applied  to  religious  subjects.  Short 
prayers  in  verse  were  produced,  and  the  stories  of  the  Creation  and 
Fall  seem  to  have  been  favourite  themes.  The  end  of  the  world  is 
described  in  a  poem  of  which  the  greater  part  has  come  down  to  us. 

The  author,  who  is  a  layman,  adopts  the  prophetic 
•Muspilli.'  .   ,  TT  u  r       !_• 

tone  of  the  preacher.     He  sets  before  his  readers  as 

effectively  as  possible  church  doctrines  which  he  barely  understands, 
and  renders  them  attractive  to  the  warlike  nobles  whom  he  addresses. 
The  following  is  a  short  outline  of  the  poem : — Two  hosts,  angels 
and  devils,  fight  for  the  departing  soul ;  Antichrist  fights  with  Elias ; 
the  former  is  conquered,  the  latter  wounded,  and  the  drops  of  his 
blood  set  on  fire  forest  and  mountain ;  all  water  is  dried  up,  heaven 
melts  in  the  glow,  the  moon  falls,  the  world  is  consumed  by  fire — 
'Muspilli,'  as  the  poet  calls  it,  using  the  old  heathen  term  for  the 
final  conflagration  of  the  world.  The  poem  draws  a  terrible  pic- 
ture of  the  pains  of  hell,  and  an  equally  attractive  one  of  the  joys  of 
heaven.  It  points  with  solemn  warnings  to  the  last  judgment 
when  all  crimes  will  come  to  light  and  be  avenged.  The  penance 
of  fasting  is  recommended  as  a  protection  against  final  punish- 
ment. The  sins  which  the  poet  specially  has  in  view  are  murder, 
bribery  of  judges,  quarrels  about  boundaries — all  of  them  aristo- 
cratic sins. 


THE  FIRST  MESSIANIC  POEMS. 

In  the  ninth  century  Christian  poetry  took  a  higher  flight,  and 
selected  as  its  theme  the  life  of  the  Saviour.  It  undertook  to 
render  the  gospel  of  love  into  German  verse,  and  dared  to  pro- 
claim to  a  warlike  people,  through  the  mouth  of  its  God,  '  Blessed 
are  the  peacemakers.' 

The  ninth  century  produced  two  Messianic  poems,  which  were 
written  during  the  reigns  of  the  son  and  grandson  of  Charlemagne: 
a  Saxon  one  by  an  unknown  poet,  and  a  Prankish  one  by  Otfried. 
Both  show  us  the  highest  theological  culture  of  the  time,  as  repre- 
sented by  the  school  of  Fulcla. 

The  monastery  of  Fulda  was  founded  by  St.  Boniface,  and  we 


Ch.  in.]  The  first  Messianic  Poems.  41 

know  pretty  accurately  all  the  circumstances  of  its  foundation. 
His  pupil  Sturmi,  who  had  lived  for  some  time  as  a  The  Mon. 
hermit,  was  charged  to  select  a  site,  and  his  bio-  asteryof 
grapher  describes  him  riding  alone  on  his  ass  through  Fulda. 
forest  and  desert,  scanning  with  sharp  eyes  mountain  and  valley, 
and  seeing  nothing  but  huge  trees  and  desert  plains,  wild  animals, 
and  all  kinds  of  birds.  At  night  he  makes  an  enclosure  for  his 
ass,  while  he  himself  sleeps  securely  after  making  the  sign  of  the 
cross  on  his  forehead.  '  Thus,'  we  are  told,  '  the  holy  man  set  out  to 
fight  against  the  devil,  well  provided  with  spiritual  weapons,  clothed 
in  the  armour  of  righteousness,  his  breast  protected  by  the  shield 
of  faith,  his  head  covered  with  the  helmet  of  salvation,  his  waist 
girt  with  the  sword  of  the  word  of  God.'  This  figure  of  the  Miles 
Christianus,  the  Christian  knight  and  vassal  of  God,  often  meets  us 
again  in  later  times,  in  Erasmus,  in  the  drama  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  in  Albert  Diirer's  pictures. 

Sturmi  was,  like  Boniface,  a  true  soldier  of  God.  He  was  the 
first  Abbot  of  Fulda.  In  the  campaigns  of  Charlemagne  he  was 
the  first  missionary  to  the  Saxons.  A  MS.  at  Fulda  preserves  the 
formula  in  which  these  heathen  were  forced  to  abjure  '  Donar, 
and  Woden,  and  Saxnot,  and  all  the  other  monsters  who  are  their 
companions.' 

From  822  Rabanus  Maurus  presided  over  the  monastery  as  fifth 
Abbot.  He  was  a  narrow  and  intolerant  man,  who  afterwards 
attained  to  the  highest  ecclesiastical  dignity  in  Germany,  and 
became  Archbishop  of  Mainz  (847  to  856).  He  made  Fulda 
the  first  and  most  esteemed  school  of  Germany.  In  his  time  the 
monastery  filled  the  position  of  a  leading  university  and  was  the 
resort  of  all  who  were  eager  to  learn.  The  works  of  Rabanus  are, 
from  our  point  of  view,  scientifically  worthless  ;  he  has  hardly  any 
original  thoughts,  and  only  transmits  those  of  others.  But  creative 
minds  were  very  rare  in  the  ninth  century,  and  even  encyclopaedic 
learning  is  a  merit.  Rabanus  directed  the  school  of  Fulda  from 
804,  and  as  Abbot  retained  part  of  the  teaching  in  his  own  hands, 
particularly  the  expounding  of  the  Scriptures.  About  820  he  wrote 
a  commentary  on  St.  Matthew's  Gospel,  which  was  much  used  in 
the  two  old  Messianic  poems  I  have  mentioned.  And  it  seems 


4»  The  Old  High-German  Period.  [ch.  ill. 

that  he  himself  had  the  idea  of  making  his  mother  tongue  the 
vehicle  of  religion.  A  Latin  life  of  Christ,  compiled  from  all  four 
Gospels,  but  based  mainly  on  St.  Matthew,  was  translated  into 
German  in  his  time,  and  probably  at  his  instigation ;  and  Otfried 
von  Weissenberg,  the  author  of  the  Prankish  Messianic  poem, 
acknowledges  himself  as  his  pupil. 

The  older  Saxon  Messianic  poem — usually  called  the  '  Heljand ' 

(Heiland) '  Saviour,'  was  composed  about  the  year  830,  and,  as  an 

The         °^  record  tells  us,  at  the  instigation  of  the  emperor 

Heljand,  Louis  the  Pious.  It  contains  about  6000  alliterative 
circa  830.  ijneS}  an(j  has  been  extravagantly  praised ;  but  an  im- 
partial critic  will  form  a  more  sober  estimate  of  its  value.  The  poet 
stands  on  the  same  level  as  the  Anglo-  Saxon  priests,  who  had  already 
in  the  eighth  century  treated  Bible-subjects  poetically  in  their  mother 
tongue.  Intellectual  intercourse  still  existed  between  the  Saxons  of 
England  and  those  of  North  Germany.  The  German  poet  could 
learn  much  from  the  English,  but  he  went  even  further  than 
they  did  in  transferring  the  spirit  and  costume  of  the  secular  epic 
to  subjects  which  from  their  nature  were  but  little  fitted  for  such 
treatment.  The  secular  epic,  as  it  existed  among  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  makes  the  sovereign  and  his  circle  the  centre  of  interest. 
The  relation  between  the  king  and  his  followers  is  a  feudal  one :  he 
gives  them  lodging  and  food,  equips  them  with  arms,  gives  them 
presents  out  of  his  treasure ;  in  return  for  this  they  are  bound  to  be 
faithful  to  him  even  to  death.  This  relation,  known  already  to 
Tacitus,  is  transferred  by  the  poet  to  Christ  and  his  disciples,  and 
he  makes  use  of  the  same  means  of  description  and  representation 
as  would  be  employed  in  secular  poetry.  But  between  the  moral 
ideas  of  Christianity  and  those  of  the  Germanic  hero  world  there  was 
a  wide  gulf  which  no  art  could  bridge.  The  warlike  deeds  com- 
memorated in  the  secular  epic  have  nothing  in  common  with  the 
peaceful  and  suffering  life  of  the  Saviour.  It  was  impossible  to 
reconcile  the  code  of  honour  which  suffered  no  insult  to  pass  un- 
avenged with  the  moral  code  which  bade  men  present  the  other 
cheek  to  the  smiter.  The  poet  carefully  omits  this  humiliating 
command ;  but  he  could  not  in  the  same  way  suppress  the  story 
of  the  flight  of  the  disciples  after  the  betrayal.  They  were  guilty  of 


Ch.  in.]  The  first  Messianic  Poems.  43 

one  of  the  blackest  crimes  known  to  the  German  moral  code,  and  yet 
they  were  holy  men  for  whom  the  poet  wishes  to  inspire  venera- 
tion. He  therefore  tries  to  justify  their  conduct  in  the  strangest 
manner.  He  denies  that  it  was  cowardice  which  made  them  for- 
sake the  Son  of  God,  and  says  they  could  not  avoid  doing  so, 
because  the  prophets  had  long  before  foretold  that  this  would 
happen.  Strange  fatalism  this !  A  true  German  would  have  accused 
those  prophets  of  lying.  As  a  compensation  the  poet  lays  great 
stress  on  the  passage  where  Peter  cuts  off  the  ear  of  the  servant 
Malchus;  this  single  warlike  action  supplied  by  the  narrative  is 
painted  in  fullest  detail.  In  other  ways,  too,  the  poet  pays  great 
regard  to  the  feelings  of  his  audience.  He  places  the  Jews  in  the 
most  unfavourable  light,  but  is  careful  to  say  nothing  against  the 
heathen  before  his  newly-converted  countrymen;  he  omits  any 
passages  of  the  Bible  likely  to  offend  their  sense  of  honour,  and 
in  one  passage  he  actually  distinguishes  the  adversaries  and  fol- 
lowers of  Christ  as  Jews  and  heathens.  He  makes  the  most  of  in- 
cidents, such  as  banquets  and  storms,  which  lent  themselves  to 
the  established  methods  of  epic  description.  But  we  cannot  say 
that  he  has  a  creative  imagination.  He  neither  invents  new  de- 
tails to  enlarge  the  story,  nor  does  he  elevate  us  by  the  spirit  in 
which  he  treats  it.  The  involuntary  travesty  by  which  he  clothes 
biblical  figures  in  the  garb  of  his  countrymen,  like  the  painters  of 
the  fifteenth  century,  may  be  called  nai've  or  original ;  at  all  events 
it  forms  for  us  the  chief  charm  of  the  poem.  We  should,  however, 
value  it  less  if  we  possessed  a  plentiful  supply  of  secular  poetry  of  the 
same  time  and  place ;  and  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  this  manner 
of  treatment  was  a  simple  necessity  with  the  poet,  if  he  wished  to 
secure  any  real  influence  for  his  poem.  There  still  remains  much 
which  is  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  an  epic,  and  which  he  could  not, 
and  indeed  did  not  try  to  remove.  Christ  is  always  the  chief 
speaker ;  his  speeches  are  often  long  and  unbroken,  and  instead  of 
deeds  we  have  maxims.  Whether  Christ  is  addressing  his  disciples, 
or  the  author  his  public,  preaching  still  preponderates. 

In  short,  this  Heljand,  which  has  been  compared  to  Homer, 
and  has  been  declared  the  most  sublime  work  which  Christian 
poetry  has  ever  produced,  nay  the  only  real  Christian  epic — 


44  The  Old  High- German  Period.  [Ch.  ill. 

this  Heljand  is  really  no  epic  at  all,  but  just  the  didactic  poem 
which  its  author  meant  it  to  be.  It  is  a  free  translation  of  the 
Bible  with  a  running  commentary  added,  composed  in  the  only 
style  which  was  at  the  author's  command,  if  he  did  not  wish  to 
make  a  literal  prose  translation.  He  is  only  a  narrator  because  his 
didactic  object  required  it.  His  work  is  meant  to  edify,  and  we 
must  look  upon  him  as  a  preacher  and  no  more. 

This  applies  still  more  to  his  successor,  Otfried,  whose  'Gospels' 
Otfried's  appeared  about  870,  and  were  dedicated  to  King  Louis 
Gospels,  the  German.  They  are  arranged  in  five  books,  the  idea 
circa  870.  being  that  they  should  purify  and  sanctify  the  five  senses. 
The  books  are  divided  into  chapters  headed  by  Latin  inscriptions, 
and  in  a  Latin  introduction  the  author  informs  us  of  his  aims  and 
principles ;  in  fact,  the  composition  claims  to  be  a  learned  work  in 
all  respects.  Strangely  enough,  this  monk  of  Weissenberg  meant 
in  writing  it  not  only  to  furnish  a  book  for  reading,  but  also  hymns 
for  singing,  and  he  hoped  that  these  hymns  would  supplant  the 
secular  songs  which  he  held  in  abhorrence.  He  has  not  that  simple 
earnestness  which  distinguishes  the  author  of  the  Heljand.  The 
exaggerated  method  of  biblical  interpretation  then  in  vogue,  which 
could  leave  no  fact  to  its  own  merits,  but  attributed  to  every  event 
a  special  symbolical,  moral  meaning,  either  retrospective  or  pro- 
phetic, interrupts  the  narrative  at  every  step  in  a  most  unpleasing 
manner.  Besides  this,  Otfried  introduces  psychological  reflections 
and  even  personal  sentiments,  and  strives  to  attain  a  touching 
eloquence.  We  will  mention  a  single  example.  When  the  three 
Wise  Men  after  having  seen  the  Holy  Child,  return  to  their  home 
by  another  way,  Rabanus  Maurus,  Otfried's  teacher,  remarks  in 
his  commentary  '  Even  so  must  we  do ;  our  home  is  Paradise,  we 
have  left  it  through  self-will  and  disobedience,  we  must  return  by 
tears  and  obedience.'  Otfried  expands  this  thought  after  he  has 
asserted  in  the  strongest  way  that  words  fail  him  to  describe 
Paradise;  he  proceeds  with  much  rhetorical  repetition  to  repre- 
sent earthly  life  as  a  sad  exile ;  he  tells  us  how  he  has  himself 
tasted  the  bitterness  of  exile.  But  such  lyrical  touches  do  not 
often  occur.  At  the  end  of  the  work  he  represents  once  more, 
in  all  its  details,  the  glory  of  heaven  as  opposed  to  the  misery 


Ch.  in.]  The  first  Messianic  Poems.  45 

of  earth.  Old  age,  which  he  laments,  seems  to  weigh  on  him- 
self; he  suffers  from  failing  strength,  ennui  and — cough.  Then 
he  lays  down  his  pen,  or,  as  he  himself  expresses  it,  he  ends  his 
voyage,  guides  his  vessel  back  to  the  coast,  lets  down  the  sail,  and 
his  oar  is  henceforth  to  rest  on  the  shore. 

Either  in  narrative  or  reflection  Otfried  seldom  expresses  himself 
in  telling  or  appropriate  language.  In  this  he  is  inferior  to  an 
otherwise  insignificant,  short,  ballad-like  poem  of  this  period,  which 
describes  the  meeting  of  Christ  and  the  woman  of  Samaria  at  the 
well.  But  his  disagreeable  diffuse  style  does  not  hinder  us  from 
enjoying  the  music  of  his  rhymed  verses,  though  in  this  it  must 
be  owned  the  merit  lies  more  with  the  language  than  with  the  poet. 
In  the  beginning  of  his  work  he  is  more  fresh  and  concise. 
His  description  of  the  Annunciation  is  very  graphic.  He  also 
draws  a  picture,  charming  for  its  fresh  naturalness,  of  the  Virgin 
as  a  young  mother.  He  lends  greater  reality  to  the  massacre  of 
the  Innocents  by  introducing  many  probable  details,  and  never 
fails  to  enlarge  on  women's  lamentations. 

But  we  do  not  find  these  pathetic  and  didactic  elements  balanced 
by  passages  expressing  natural  pleasure  in  life.  Yet  Otfried  is 
proud  of  the  glory  of  the  Franks,  he  praises  the  country  and 
people,  and  we  see  that  national  pride  guides  his  pen.  He  is  not 
so  much  a  monk  as  to  suppress  his  patriotic  feelings.  The  chapter 
entitled  '  Why  the  author  wrote  this  book  in  German/  is  perhaps 
the  most  interesting  in  the  whole  work. 

Otfried  establishes  a  peculiar  literary  canon  according  to  which 
piety  is  all-important  for  sacred  songs,  for  then  angels  help  the 
poet.  He  praises  the  literary  art  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  and 
especially  commends  their  poetry  for  its  smoothness  and  polish. 
They  would  have  presented  the  sacred  story  in  an  equally  beautiful 
form  ;  why  should  not  the  Franks  do  the  same  ?  For  they  were 
as  brave  and  warlike  as  the  Romans  and  Greeks ;  they  were  wise 
and  skilful,  rich  and  industrious,  and  all  nations — unless  separated 
from  them  by  the  sea — stood  in  awe  of  them.  They  came  from 
Macedonia  and  were  related  to  Alexander,  who  subdued  the  world : 
therefore  even  the  Medes  and  Persians  would  come  off  badly,  if 
they  fought  with  them. 


46  The  Old  High-German  Period.  [Cb.  ill. 

These  patriotic  sentiments  are  not  merely  personal  on  the  part 
of  Otfried.  He  only  expresses  in  a  naive  poetic  form  thoughts 
which  had  long  lived  among  his  people,  and  had  found  utterance 
in  an  official  document  at  the  head  of  the  chief  collection  of  Prankish 
laws,  the  Lex  Salica.  '  The  glorious  nation  of  the  Franks,'  it  is 
there  said,  'was  founded  by  God  the  Creator,  brave  in  war,  faithful 
in  covenants,  wise  in  counsel,  of  high  stature,  white  skin,  and  great 
beauty,  bold,  quick,  and  keen.'  And  then  Christ's  protection  and 
favour  are  invoked  for  empire,  rulers,  and  army,  on  the  following 
grounds  : — 'For  this  is  the  strong  and  brave  people,  who  by  hard 
fighting  broke  the  heavy  yoke  of  the  Romans  from  off  their  neck, 
and  who,  after  they  had  been  baptized,  adorned  with  gold  and 
precious  stones  the  bodies  of  those  holy  martyrs  whom  the 
Romans  burnt  in  the  fire,  mutilated  by  the  sword  and  flung  to 
the  wild  beasts.' 

Such  utterances  as  these  enable  us  to  realise  in  some  measure 
the  thoughts  which  must  have  been  present  to  Charlemagne  when 
he  seized  the  crown  of  the  Caesars.  And  an  equally  strong  pride 
in  their  Saxon  nationality  must  have  inspired  Otto  the  Great  and 
his  successors,  when  they  followed  the  example  of  Charlemagne, 
and  when  the  far-reaching  dominion  of  the  Franks  seemed  for  a 
time  to  be  renewed  in  the  Saxons. 

THE  MEDIEVAL  RENAISSANCE. 

In  the  year  1000,  the  youthful  Emperor  Otto  the  Third  had  the 
vault  of  Charlemagne  in  the  Cathedral  at  Aix-la-Chapel!e  opened, 
and  descended  into  it.  He  took  the  golden  cross  from  the  neck 
of  the  corpse,  and  some  of  the  clothes,  then  had  the  remains 
reverently  put  back  into  the  coffin,  and  retired. 

The  youth  of  twenty-one  who,  half-reverential,  half-bold,  thus  ven- 
tured to  disturb  the  repose  of  the  great  emperor,  was  animated 
by  the  same  spirit  as  his  mighty  predecessor.  The  old  glory  of  the 
Romans  was  present  to  both,  and  both  were  inspired  by  the 
thought  that  the  universal  empire  of  the  Romans  had  passed  to 
the  Germans.  The  mediaeval  Renaissance  has  two  culminating 
periods,  the  first  under  Charlemagne,  the  second  under  the  Ottos. 


Ch.  in.]  The  Mediaeval  Renaissance.  47 

The  political  aspect  of  this  Renaissance  is  represented  by  the 
revival  of  the  Empire  of  the  West;  the  artistic  side  is  repre- 
sented by  palaces  and  churches  formed  on  late  Roman  and  By- 
zantine models,  and  in  part  actually  constructed  out  of  antique 
materials.  The  literary  aspect  of  the  Renaissance  is  seen  in 
improved  schools,  in  the  revival  of  classical  studies,  in  the  writing 
of  Latin  history  and  poetry,  in  which  phrases  borrowed  from 
Suetonius  and  Virgil  were  made  to  serve  new  purposes.  Charle- 
magne was  praised  in  the  same  terms  as  Caesar  Augustus,  and 
the  founding  of  Aix  was  likened  to  the  founding  of  Carthage  in 
the  ^Eneid. 

Aix  is  the  classical  home  of  the  mediaeval  Renaissance,  and, 
according  to  Charlemagne's  idea,  was  to  be  a  second  Rome,  a 
Christian  Athens.  The  Italian  campaigns  had  made  Charlemagne 
acquainted  with  the  education  received  by  the  laity  in  the  South, 
and  this  had  roused  him  to  emulation.  From  the  year  781  he 
strove  to  make  his  court  the  centre  of  all  the  Latin  cul-  court  of 
ture  of  the  time.  There  we  find  the  Italians  Paulinus  Charlemagne, 
and  Petrus  of  Pisa ;  the  Lombard  Paulus  Diaconus,  the  historian  of 
his  people ;  the  Anglo-Saxon  Alcuin,  the  first  theologian,  philoso- 
pher, and  teacher  of  his  age ;  the  Spanish  Goth  Theodulf,  the  first 
poet  of  his  time ;  the  Irishman  Clement ;  the  Franks  Angelbert  and 
Eginhard.  Charles  and  his  most  intimate  scientific  friends  had 
regular  meetings  after  the  manner  of  an  academy.  They  exchanged 
poetic  epistles,  set  scientific  problems,  and  propounded  enigmas. 
As  in  later  academies,  the  members  had  special  academic  names ; 
Charles  himself  was  called  David,  Angelbert  the  new  Homer,  and 
Alcuin  the  new  Horace.  Like  later  academies,  they  imagined 
themselves  in  the  pastoral  world,  and  two  of  the  courtiers  were 
called  Menalcas  and  Thyrsis.  No  wonder  that  the  antique  idyll 
was  revived  in  this  circle,  and  in  connection  with  it  there  arose 
the  '  Streitgedicht,'  or  poem  in  dialogue  (called  conflictus  in  Latin), 
which  was  so  much  in  vogue  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  antagonism 
of  summer  and  winter  was  a  favourite  theme  in  such  poetry. 

The  consciousness  of  living  in  the  midst  of  a  Renaissance  of 
vanished  glories  might  well  fire  the  hearts  of  men  of  that  day. 
Thus  a  young  poet  describes  the  great  Emperor,  as  looking  down 


48  The  Old  High-German  Period.  [ch.  HI. 

from  the  battlements  of  his  palace  at  Aix,  on  the  kingdoms  subject 
to  his  sceptre,  on  the  changed  aspect  of  the  world,  and  the  revival 
of  ancient  civilisation.  '  Already,'  he  exclaims,  '  golden  Rome  is 
born  again  on  the  globe.' 

No  one  has  a  better  claim  to  be  compared  with  Charlemagne 
than  Alfred  the  Great  of  England.  And  they  both  have  this  in 
common,  that  they  did  not  devote  themselves  exclusively  to  Latin 
literature,  but  valued  the  productions  of  their  own  country.  Charle- 
magne surpassed  all  his  court  in  many-sidedness  and  literary 
patriotism.  He  caused  the  German  heroic  songs  to  be  written 
down,  and  began  himself  to  compile  a  German  grammar;  but  no 
lasting  results  followed  these  efforts.  The  culture  of  the  laity, 
which  he  had  so  much  at  heart,  seems  not  to  have  been  quite 
lost  in  the  next  two  centuries;  the  higher  classes  could  at  least 
introduce  scraps  of  Latin  into  their  conversation.  But  the  heroic 
songs  were  forgotten,  and  the  grammar  was  never  finished.  Hence- 
forth the  monasteries  were  the  chief  homes  of  culture.  The 
Monastery  monastery  of  St.  Gall  is  one  of  the  best-known 
of  St.  Gall,  centres  of  civilisation  in  the  middle  ages  *.  The 
foundation  of  St.  Gall  dates  from  the  seventh  century ;  its  most 
flourishing  period  lasted  from  the  end  of  the  ninth  on  through 
the  tenth  century.  About  883  an  old  monk  collected  and  wrote 
down  a  number  of  anecdotes  about  Charles  the  Great,  which  he 
derived  from  oral  tradition.  We  see  how  the  figure  of  the  Emperor 
was  gradually  enveloped  in  the  mist  of  legend,  which  however 
did  not  diminish,  but  rather  increased,  his  regal  grandeur.  Among 
the  younger  contemporaries  and  cloister  brothers  of  this  unknown 
monk  there  were  many  able  men,  who  far  surpassed  him  in  learn- 
ing. They  devoted  themselves  mostly  to  writing  Latin  hymns, 
they  were  good  musicians,  and  their  monastery  was  celebrated  for 
its  school  of  sacred  song.  They  also  began  to  translate  the 
Psalms  into  German  rhymed  verse,  but  of  this,  unhappily,  little  is 
left  to  us. 

So  soon  as  the  troubles  which  darkened  the  opening  decades 
of  the  tenth  century  had  passed  away  the  spirit  of  Charlemagne's 

1  A  good  picture  of  this  age  is  given  in  the  modern  novel  '  Ekkehard,'  by 
Victor  Scheffel. 


Ch.  in.]  The  Mediaeval  Renaissance.  49 

age  revived.  The  literary  fame  of  the  monastery  was  connected 
with  the  names  of  the  monks,  Ekkehard  the  First,  who  died  in  973, 
and  Notker  Teutonicus,  who  died  in  1022.  The  former  revived 
the  Germanic  hero-song,  in  Latin  hexameters,  it  is  true,  after  the 
example  of  Virgil ;  the  latter  continued  the  German  prose  of  the 
Carlovingian  epoch,  and  made  the  grammatical  correctness  and 
purity  of  the  German  language  his  chief  concern.  Ekkehard's 
'Walter  of  the  Strong  Hand'  (Waltharius  manu  fortis)  Ekkehard's 
was  not,  as  Scheffel  pretends,  composed  in  romantic  'Waltharius.' 
solitude,  but  was  produced  on  the  school  bench,  about  930,  as  a 
theme  set  and  corrected  by  the  teacher.  It  is  a  remarkable  poem, 
not  so  much  on  account  of  the  classical  form  given  it  by  the 
author,  as  by  reason  of  the  materials,  the  old  song,  or  songs, 
which  he  made  use  of.  There  are  passages  in  it  which  remind  us 
of  the  Iliad.  The  poet  does  not  merely  speak,  but  narrates  in  a 
broad,  graphic,  and  truly  epic  style.  A  number  of  single  combats  take 
place  at  the  mouth  of  a  cave  in  the  Vosges  mountains,  and  the 
peculiar  features  of  each,  as  well  as  the  different  kinds  of  weapons, 
and  the  way  in  which  they  were  used,  are  carefully  described. 
Walther  is  defending  his  betrothed  Hildegund,  whom  he  has 
carried  off  with  rich  treasures  from  the  Huns,  against  the  twelve 
heroes  of  Worms  led  by  King  Gunther.  A  message  from  Gunther, 
demanding  his  submission,  is  rejected  by  Walther,  though  at  the 
same  time  he  offers  one  hundred  golden  bracelets,  if  Gunther  will 
leave  him  in  peace.  Hagen,  Gunther's  vassal,  but  also  Walther's 
old  companion  in  arms,  finds  himself  placed  between  conflicting 
duties.  He  advises  that  the  bracelets  should  be  accepted,  for  he 
has  had  a  dream  foreboding  evil  from  this  combat.  But  Gunther 
reproaches  him  with  hereditary  cowardice.  Hagen  thereupon  holds 
aloof  from  the  fight,  like  Achilles ;  he  rides  away  to  a  hill,  dis- 
mounts from  his  horse  and  looks  on  calmly,  as  one  hero  after 
another  vainly  rushes  to  the  attack  and  meets  his  death.  Hagen 
himself  has  to  mourn  the  loss  of  his  nephew  whom  he  had  warned 
in  vain.  Eleven  warriors  have  fallen :  then  at  length  the  king  is 
able  by  prayers  and  entreaties  to  prevail  with  him,  and  the  following 
day,  when  Walther  leaves  his  cave,  Hagen  avenges  his  nephew's 
death ;  he  and  Gunther  together  fall  on  the  hero,  and  after  they 


50  The  Old  High-German  Period.  [ch.IH. 

have  all  been  cruelly  mutilated,  peace  is  concluded.  Gunther  has 
lost  a  leg,  Walther  his  right  hand,  Hagen  his  right  eye.  Hildegund 
approaches,  binds  up  their  wounds,  and  presents  them  with  wine 
which  she  has  herself  tasted.  Walther  and  Hagen  exchange  rough 
jests  and  renew  their  friendship. 

A  cold,  stern  spirit  pervades  the  whole  poem,  but  it  shows  re- 
markable artistic  taste.  The  poet  has  produced  a  work  of  the 
first  order,  and  it  is  a  great  pity  that  we  can  only  enjoy  it  in  a 
Latin  form.  There  is  a  perfect  connection  and  unity  throughout 
the  whole  poem.  Here  too,  as  in  the  Song  of  Hildebrand,  the 
interest  turns  on  the  fact  that  two  heroes,  bound  together  by  close 
ties,  cannot  avoid  fighting  with  each  other ;  but  this  time  the  issue 
is  not  tragic.  The  quarrel  does  not  proceed  from  unavoidable 
circumstances,  but  from  the  covetousness  of  King  Gunther,  who 
disturbs  the  friendship  of  the  two  invincible  heroes ;  he  represents 
the  evil  principle  in  the  poem,  and  is  therefore  painted  as  black  as 
possible  by  the  poet.  The  chief  characters  furnish  us  with  a 
moral  lesson,  and  at  the  same  time  most  of  the  secondary  cha- 
racters have  a  clear  individuality  of  their  own.  Though  friend- 
ship between  men  is  the  leading  motive  of  the  poem,  yet  love  of 
women  is  not  absent.  There  is  a  beautiful  description  of  Walther 
sleeping  with  his  head  in  Hildegund's  lap,  while  she  watches 
against  the  approach  of  danger.  When  she  thinks  the  Huns  are 
coming  she  sinks  on  her  knees  before  Walther,  begging  him  to 
kill  her,  so  that  she  may  not  fall  into  the  hands  of  any  other  man. 
There  is  also  much  beauty  in  the  account  of  the  night  between 
the  first  and  second  day  of  fighting.  Walther  entrenches  himself 
in  a  cave,  lays  each  dead  man's  head  beside  the  body,  drives  in  the 
captured  horses  and  ties  them  up  with  boughs.  Then  he  again 
sleeps  the  first  part  of  the  night  in  Hildegund's  lap,  while  she  keeps 
herself  awake  by  singing ;  the  remainder  of  the  night  he  lets  the 
maiden  sleep,  while  he  watches.  Jacob  Grimm  justly  remarks  that 
this  scene  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  in  the  whole  of  our  early  poetry. 

The  young  Ekkehard  has,  it  would  seem,  very  faithfully  repro- 
duced his  original.  Monkish  sentiments  are  not  inseparably 
interwoven  into  the  fabric  of  the  poem,  but  occur  incidentally ;  for 
instance,  Walther,  during  the  night,  is  made  to  pray  for  the  souls  of 


ch.  in.]  The  Medieval  Renaissance.  51 

the  slain ;  a  long  moral  reflection  on  covetousness  is  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Hagen ;  and  again  Walther,  after  proud  heroic  words,  is 
made  to  fall  down  at  once  on  his  knees,  and  with  Christian 
humility  to  entreat  pardon  of  God. 

The  second  monk  of  St.  Gall,  who  contributed  to  the  develop- 
ment of  German  literature,  Notker,  surnamed  the  -works  of 
German,  or  the  thick-lipped,  is  also  no  mere  monkish  Notker  and 
author.  He  wrote  much  himself,  and  inspired  those  otlier  monks- 
around  him  to  write  also.  In  his  prose  translation  of  the  Psalms 
with  explanatory  notes,  he  followed  that  same  taste  for  annotated 
paraphrases  of  Scripture,  which  in  the  ninth  century  had  given  the 
first  impulse  to  German  poetry.  Besides  late  Roman  philosophical 
works,  the  monks  even  ventured  to  approach  Aristotle.  But  it 
is  still  more  interesting  to  find  among  this  monkish  literature  a 
text-book  of  rhetoric,  giving  examples  taken  from  German  popular 
songs,  and  a  text-book  of  logic,  illustrating  various  syllogisms  by 
German  proverbs.  The  most  interesting  and  characteristic  work 
of  this  Renaissance  literature  is  unfortunately  lost  to  us,  namely, 
a  German  version  of  the  '  Andria '  of  Terence. 

The  comedies  of  Terence  were  favourite  reading  at  this  time, 
as  is  proved  by  the  writings  of  the  nun  Roswitha,  ROSWitha  of 
the  first  German  poetess  and  the  first  dramatist  since     Ganders- 
the  Roman  epoch.     Her  name  transports  us  at  one        helm, 
step  to  North  Germany,  and  the  circles  connected  with  the  Court 
of  the  Ottos. 

The  women  of  the  mediaeval  Renaissance  were  the  intellectual 
rivals  of  the  men.  The  daughters  of  Charlemagne  received  a 
classical  education ;  the  Duchess  Hadawig  of  Suabia,  a  strong- 
willed  woman  and  unconventional  in  her  habits,  even  went  so  far 
as  to  learn  Greek.  So  we  are  not  surprised  to  find  a  nun  imitating 
Terence,  and  adding  to  his  six  comedies  six  new  ones  in  Latin 
prose,  in  which  themes  of  very  doubtful  propriety  are  often 
touched  on.  I  shall  say  nothing  about  her  life  of '  Otto  the  Great,' 
or  about  her  '  Sacred  Legends,'  though  amongst  them  we  find 
that  of  Theophilus,  the  mediaeval  Faust;  for  the  fact  that  she 
gave  a  dramatic  form  to  such  legends  is  of  far  greater  importance. 
Roswitha  dramatised  legends  in  the  same  manner  as  Shakespeare 


5 a  The  Old  High- German  Period.  [Ch.in. 

dramatised  tales.  She  always  leaves  virtue  triumphant  in  the  end, 
Boswitha's  but  she  leads  us  fearlessly  through  the  very  depths 
plays.  of  wickedness.  Roswitha  is  anything  but  prudish, 
yet  she  never  sinks  to  mere  coarseness;  the  consciousness  of 
a  good  aim  makes  her  regardless  of  conventional  prejudices. 
Her  pieces  are  short  sketches,  with  rapid  action  and  constant 
change  of  scene.  She  hardly  attempts  any  development  of  cha- 
racter, but  she  knows  how  to  depict  emotions,  to  reproduce 
conflicting  feelings,  and  to  make  these  the  source  of  action  in 
the  play.  Her  dialogue  is  lively,  her  speeches  never  too  long, 
and  her  piety  never  obtrudes  itself  upon  us.  She  often  contrives 
her  scenes  very  skilfully;  she  has  an  eye  for  what  will  produce 
a  good  effect  and  appeal  to  the  audience,  and  many  varieties  of 
the  later  drama  are  foreshadowed  in  her  works.  '  Gallicanus,'  for 
instance,  is  an  historical  tragedy  in  two  parts,  in  which  the  con- 
trast between  a  Christian  and  a  heathen  emperor  is  shown  in  the 
persons  of  Constantine  and  Julian  the  Apostate.  The  play  en- 
titled 'Dulcitius'  borders  upon  farce.  The  Governor  Dulcitius, 
having  to  guard  three  holy  virgins  and  future  martyrs,  falls  in  love 
with  them,  and  tries  to  embrace  them;  but  God  blinds  him,  so 
that  he  embraces  cooking-vessels  instead,  and  appears  black  all 
over;  his  guard  fly  from  him,  taking  him  for  the  devil  himself; 
he  is  thrown  down  the  steps  of  the  imperial  palace,  and  at  length 
is  roused  by  his  wife  from  his  delusion.  The  play  of  '  Abraham ' 
paves  the  way  for  the  popular  sentimental  drama.  A  hermit  of 
this  name,  disguised  as  a  knight,  rescues  his  niece  from  the  slough 
of  evil,  into  which  she  has  sunk  deep  without  being  utterly  lost. 
'  Callimachus,'  finally,  is  an  example  of  a  love  tragedy,  with  a  curious 
likeness  in  some  parts  to  Shakespeare's  '  Romeo  and  Juliet.' 
Callimachus  is  in  love  with  Drusiana,  the  wife  of  the  prince  An- 
dronicus.  His  friends  reprove  his  passion;  they  tell  him  that 
Drusiana  is  baptized  and  is  a  pupil  of  the  apostle  John,  and,  in 
spite  of  her  marriage,  under  a  vow  of  chastity,  so  that  it  would 
not  be  possible  to  gain  her  affections.  Nevertheless,  he  declares 
his  passion  to  her ;  she  indignantly  repels  him,  and  in  the  agony 
of  her  doubt  whether  to  confess  this  declaration  of  love  to  her 
husband  or  not, — for  she  fears  mischief  in  either  case, — she  prays 


Ch.  III.]  The    Wandering  Journalists.  53 

to  God  for  death,  which  is  at  once  granted  her.  The  last  scene, 
again  reminding  us  of  '  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  leads  us  into  Drusiana's 
grave.  There  Callimachus  also  lies  dead,  slain  by  the  wrath  of 
God  upon  the  threshold  of  crime.  But  the  miraculous  interfer- 
ence of  St.  John  restores  both  to  life,  and  wins  the  once  too 
passionate  but  now  purified  lover  to  Christianity. 

The  mediaeval  Renaissance  was  indissolubly  connected  with  the 
empire.  With  the  decline  of  the  Carlovingian  empire  learning 
also  decayed.  But  with  the  restoration  of  the  empire  under  Otto 
the  Great  a  fresh  impulse  was  given  to  literary  efforts.  Historians 
arose,  and  intellectual  life  revived  in  the  monasteries  and  round 
the  episcopal  sees.  By  his  marriage  Otto  II  was 
connected,  through  his  wife  Theophania,  with  Greek  °n  e 


learning,  and  their  son,  Otto  III,  formed  grand  but     Mediaeval 
fantastic  projects  of  intellectual  achievement,  in  which  Renaissance 
he  was  encouraged  by  the  first  scholar  of  the  age,  the  impe^ialism 
Frenchman  Gerbert,  just  as  Charlemagne  had  been 
by   the    great    Alcuin.      Otto    III    despised    Saxon    barbarism; 
his  mind  delighted  to  dwell  far  away  from  his  own  times,  among 
the  triumphs  of  the  Caesars.      Eternal  Rome  itself  should  be  the 
seat  of  his  government,  the  Code  of  Justinian  should  again  rule 
the  globe.     His  palace  stood  on  the  Aventine,  and  he  was  sur- 
rounded by  Byzantine  ceremonial.     But  his  short  life  was  spent  in 
dreams,  which  he  could  not  even  make   his  people  share.     Ac- 
cording to  his  own  wish  he  was  buried  in  the  cathedral  at  Aix, 
side  by  side  with  his  great  ancestor  Charlemagne. 

THE  WANDERING  JOURNALISTS. 

We  have  noticed  the  varied  and  fruitful  literary  activity  of  the 
monasteries.  But  the  professional  German  poet  of  the  ninth  and 
tenth  centuries  did  not  live  in  the  monasteries  ;  in  fact  he  had  no 
fixed  home.  He  was  a  roving  minstrel,  who  wandered  from 
place  to  place  to  gain  his  livelihood.  We  cannot  describe  him 
more  exactly  than  by  calling  him  the  journalist  of  the  time.  The 
singers  who,  1200  years  back,  wandered  from  one  court  to  an- 
other, bringing  with  them  the  latest  news,  have  as  good  a  right 


54  The  Old  High-German  Period.  [ch.  in. 

to  be  designated  journalists  as  the  correspondents  of  a  modern 
newspaper. 

When  the  nobler  poets  of  the  age  of  the  migration  died  out, 
The  they  were  replaced  by  the  '  gleeman '  (Spielmann), 

Gleemen.  who  resembled  the  Roman  mi'mus.  He  represents  a 
somewhat  lower  order  of  journalism  ;  his  office  may  be  compared 
with  that  of  an  illustrated  comic  paper,  the  illustrations  being  acted 
by  himself.  He  was  a  clown,  with  something  about  him  of  the 
actor  and  conjuror.  He  accompanied  the  dance  on  his  instrument, 
and  sang  at  court  and  in  the  streets.  But  he  always  sang  about 
the  latest  events.  The  grand  heroic  legend  with  its  high  ideals  was 
losing  favour  with  the  general  public  ;  it  became  more  and  more 
meagre,  and  finally  took  refuge  in  the  peasant's  hut.  The 
present  entirely  engrossed  men's  attention  as  in  the  epoch  of  the 
migration.  The  poets  became  the  organs  of  public  opinion,  and 
therefore  also  the  organs  of  those  who  wished  to  govern  public 
opinion.  We  know  little  of  these  minstrel  poems  of  the  ninth 
century,  but  we  may  suppose  that  they  were  not  entirely  devoid  of 
serious  and  lofty  thoughts.  We  can,  however,  gain  an  idea  of  what 

The  Lud-    they  were  like  from  a  poem  by  a  priest  commemorating 

•wigsiied,  the  victory  of  the  Carlovingian  monarch,  Louis  III, 
8th  century.  ovef  the  NormanS)  on  August  3,  881.  The  poem  is 
called  the  '  Ludwigslied.' 

The  author  does  not  confine  himself  to  this  single  event,  but 
sketches  in  bold  outlines  the  entire  life  of  his  hero.  He  chooses 
for  this  purpose  a  mythic  form,  taking  as  his  model  certain  stories 
of  the  Old  Testament,  in  which  God  is  described  as  holding  direct 
intercourse  with  men.  Louis,  he  tells  us,  lost  his  father  when  a 
child,  but  God  supplied  the  loss.  He  adopted  him,  became  his 
teacher,  and  then  gave  him  rule.  Then,  minded  to  put  his  youth  to 
trial,  He  suffered  the  Normans  to  cross  the  sea,  and  punish  the  Franks 
for  their  sins.  The  king  was  far  away,  but  God  saw  their  distress, 
and  bade  him  go  thither.  '  Louis,  my  king,  help  my  people,  who 
are  sore  oppressed  by  the  Normans.'  Then  said  Louis,  '  Lord, 
if  death  does  not  hinder  me,  I  will  do  all  that  thou  commandest.' 
Forthwith  he  departs,  rides  against  the  Normans,  and  rests  his 
authority,  before  his  people,  on  the  fact  that  God  has  sent  him. 


Ch.ilL]  The   Wandering  Journalists.  55 

The  story  is  energetically  told,  the  language  is  terse  and  preg- 
nant, and  the  interest  never  flags,  nearly  every  half  line  introducing 
a  new  incident.  The  poet's  religious  bias  is  apparent  throughout; 
the  evil  that  befalls  the  people  is  a  Divine  judgment,  and  is  felt  as 
such ;  all  sinners  do  penance.  Two  dialogues  precede  the  battle, 
one  between  God  and  Louis,  the  other  between  Louis  and  his 
followers.  The  poet  lingers  over  these,  but  not  in  so  marked  a 
manner  as  the  author  of  the  '  Hildebrandslied.'  The  whole  poem 
is  conceived  in  the  true  biblical  spirit,  all  the  incidents  being  divinely 
ordained.  The  enemy  is  described  merely  as  the  instrument  of 
God,  and  Louis  is  His  minister.  Only  in  the  beginning  of  the 
battle  do  we  get  a  glimpse  of  the  masses  of  the  people ;  they  join 
in  the  war-song,  the  fray  begins,  the  angry  blood  rises  to  their 
cheeks,  the  Franks  leap  for  joy.  But  then  our  attention  is  im- 
mediately recalled  to  the  king — '  No  one  fought  like  Louis,  brave 
and  bold,  according  to  his  wont.  He  hewed  down  one,  he  ran 
through  another ;  he  gave  his  enemies  bitter  wine  to  drink :  woe 
to  them — their  lives  are  at  stake.  Praised  be  the  power  of  God, 
Louis  was  victorious.'  The  poet  has  nothing  more  to  relate ;  he 
concludes  by  invoking  blessings  on  the  king. 

This   song  was  intended   for  edification,  not    for    amusement 

or   instruction.      The   minstrel   poetry  of  the    next, 

}  Minstrel 

the   tenth   century,  offers   a   complete    contrast.     It       Poetry 
was    frivolous    and    comic,    gay   and    bold,   whilst       of  the 
maintaining   the   same   energy    of    diction   that   we 10     century- 
noticed   in   the    Ludwigslied.     Conciseness,  point,   and   epigram 
are  its  main  objects,  and  a  witty  saying  forms  the  favourite  ending 
for  a  narrative.     Short  satiric  poems  were  much  in  vogue ;  one  of 
these,  on  a  broken-off  betrothal,  has  been  preserved.     Another 
poem,  descriptive  of  a  chase,  gives  a  very  amusing  picture  of  the 
hunted  boar.    He  has  feet  as  large  as  a  cart-wheel,  bristles  as  high 
as  trees,  and  tusks  twelve  ells  long. 

But  these  short  fragments  really  tell  us  little  about  the  min- 
strel poetry.     We  can  happily  learn  more  from  the    Historians 
historians  of  the  end  of  the  tenth  century,  who  profited        of  the 
by  the  poetic  activity  of  the  minstrels.  They  had  often  loth  century- 
no  other  sources  of  information  but  these  poems,  and  expressly 


56  The  Old  High-German  Period.  [Cb.  in. 

mention  the  fact  that  remarkable  events  were  handed  down  in 
song.  The  bloody  feud  of  the  Babenbergs  and  Conradins  in 
the  time  of  Louis  the  Child  (899-911)  was  celebrated  in  song 
even  as  late  as  the  twelfth  century.  There  was  a  rich  cycle  of 
legends  about  Henry  the  Fowler  (918-936).  After  a  victory 
of  his  Saxons  over  King  Conrad's  (911-918)  brother,  the  glee- 
men  exclaim,  '  Is  hell  large  enough  to  hold  all  the  slain  ?' 
Otto  the  Great  (936-973)  had  a  vassal  Kuno,  Count  of  Nieder- 
lahngau,  who,  on  account  of  his  smallness,  was  nicknamed 
'Kurzibold.'  He  was  the  special  favourite  of  these  wandering 
minstrels ;  being  a  good  subject  for  mirth  and  humour.  He  had 
by  nature  such  an  abhorrence  of  women  and  apples,  that  he  would 
not  lodge  on  his  journeys  in  a  place  where  he  had  met  with  either. 
Long  afterwards,  it  was  a  popular  saying  for  anyone  who  did  not 
seem  susceptible  to  love,  '  He  cannot  eat  apples.'  Kuno  had  a 
bold  heart  in  his  little  body;  he  is  said  to  have  vanquished,  like  a 
new  David,  only  with  a  lance  instead  of  a  sling,  a  gigantic  Slav, 
who  had  challenged  him  to  fight.  The  minstrels  also  sang  of 
incredible  deeds  of  valour  performed  by  him  in  the  war  against 
the  two  dukes,  Giselbert  of  Lorraine  and  Eberhard  of  Franconia. 
Once,  when  the  army  of*  these  dukes  was  crossing  the  Rhine  at 
Breisach  and  they  were  meanwhile  playing  chess  on  the  bank, 
Kurzibold  attacked  them  with  only  twenty  men.  He  sank  the 
boat  into  which  Duke  Giselbert  sprang,  by  boring  a  hole  in  it  with 
his  lance :  Eberhard  he  slew  on  the  bank,  reproaching  him  for  his 
faithlessness. 

Otto  the  Great  was  always  wont  to  swear  by  his  beard.  This 
gave  rise  to  the  story  of  a  Suabian  knight,  who  once  dragged  him 
to  the  ground  by  his  beard,  threatened  his  life,  and  thus  obtained 
pardon  for  a  murder  which  he  had  committed ;  he  was,  however, 
banished  and  not  received  back  into  favour  till  after  he  had  saved 
the  emperor's  life  in  Italy,  by  springing  from  the  bath  in  his  tent 
and  rescuing  him  from  an  ambush  into  which  he  had  fallen.  The 
minstrel-poetry  is  not  over  particular  in  its  choice  of  materials,  as 
may  be  seen  from  this  tale  of  rude  violence. 

The  revolt  of  Otto  the  Great's  son,  Ludolf,  no  doubt  furnished 
another  theme  to  the  minstrels  of  the  time.  The  songs  they  com- 


Ch.  ill.]  The    Wandering  Journalists.  57 

posed  about  it  formed  the  basis  of  the  later  legend  of  Herzog  Ernst, 
which  attained  such  prominence  in  Middle  High-German  poetry. 

Besides  kings,  princes,  and  nobles  the  gleemen  also  sang  the 
praises  of  remarkable  ecclesiastics  such  as  Bishop  Ulrich  of  Augs- 
burg and  Benno  of  Osnabriick.  Some  of  these  gleemen  themselves 
sprang  from  the  ranks  of  the  clergy.  Good-for-nothing  clerical 
clergy  and  those  who  were  averse  to  the  discipline  of  Gleemen. 
any  special  order  joined  the  body  of  wandering  singers.  They 
then  turned  their  knowledge  of  Latin  to  account ;  they  wrote  Latin 
poetry  or  mixed  Latin  with  German,  thereby  recommending  them- 
selves to  a  more  cultivated  audience.  They  were  particularly  fond 
of  praising  music.  One  of  them  gives  a  somewhat  biassed  account 
of  the  reconciliation  of  Otto  the  Great  with  his  brother  Henry; 
another  celebrates  the  wonderful  escape  of  Otto  II  (973-983)  after 
a  lost  battle.  A  third  describes  the  victory  over  the  Hungarians  on 
the  field  of  the  Lech,  and  praises  all  three  Ottos.  A  fourth  neglects 
subjects  of  public  interest  for  coarse  tales  of  Swabian  cunning.  Even 
Oriental  tales  are  included  in  his  repertoire,  as  well  as  incidents  which 
we  find  again  in  Boccaccio :  but  the  bare  narrative  is  all  that  these 
poets  care  about,  and  they  take  no  pains  to  shape  and  elaborate  it. 

Every  humorous  topic  is  welcome  to  the  gleemen.  They  even 
seize  on  sacred  legends,  and  divest  them  of  their  religious  meaning. 
We  have  large  fragments  of  a  German  Martyrdom  of  gong  of  the 
St.  George,  which  to  our  ideas  is  a  perfect  comedy,  Martyrdom 
and  reads  like  a  modern  parody.  St.  George  is  of  St.  George, 
struck  down  with  a  wonderfully  sharp  sword,  but  he  jumps  up 
immediately  and  begins  preaching  again.  He  is  bound,  put  on 
the  wheel,  torn  in  ten  pieces,  but  he  jumps  up  again  at  once  and 
resumes  his  preaching.  He  is  ground  to  pieces,  burnt  to  ashes, 
thrown  into  a  well,  over  the  mouth  of  which  great  stones  are  rolled, 
the  heathen  run  round  it,  mocking  him  ;  but  he  jumps  up  once 
more  and  resumes  his  discourse.  The  outward  form  in  which  these 
extraordinary  adventures  are  clothed  is  more  polished  than  one 
might  expect.  The  merry  company  of  gleemen  became  more  and 
more  welcome  in  good  society;  this  refined  their  taste,  and  helped 
to  keep  up  among  them  a  poetical  tradition.  It  is  true  this  inter- 
course did  not  raise  them  morally.  The  whole  epoch  is  wanting 


58  The  Old  High-German  Period.  [Ch.  HI. 

in  moral  refinement ;  all  the  characteristic  anecdotes  have  something 
cold-blooded,  coarse,  and  jocular  about  them.  To  outwit  another 
was  evidently  the  acme  of  intelligence,  just  as  it  was  the  highest  of 
pleasures  to  laugh  at  the  dupe. 

Summing  up  the  different  modes  of  literary  activity,  by  means 

of  which  these  minstrels   partly  led,  partly  flattered 

literary      the   taste   °f  their   age>   an^  taking  no  account  of 

character-    their  dramatic  attempts,  of  which  we  know  nothing, 

istics  of  the  we  m  tkat   these  modes  chiefly  consisted  of 

9th  and  10th 

centuries,    historical  ballads,  tales,  legends,    fairy  stories,  farces, 

fables  of  animal  life,  in  a  word  of  short  narratives. 
Of  works  of  greater  calibre  than  these,  the  ninth  and  tenth 
centuries  offer  hardly  any  trace.  For  instance,  no  romances 
or  epics  were  composed,  nor  any  poems  too  long  to  have  been 
improvised  and  having  an  intricate  and  well-worked-out  plot. 
There  is  no  new  creation,  but  merely  a  handing  on  of  old  material. 
In  the  monastery  of  St.  Gall,  attempts  were  made  to  present 
German  heroic  songs  in  a  classical  form,  and  romances  written 
during  the  last  decadence  of  classical  literature  were  still  read,  such  as 
the  historical  romance  of  Alexander  the  Great,  and  the  romance 
of  Apollonius  of  Tyre.  But  it  is  not  till  the  eleventh  century  that 
we  meet  with  any  really  creative  works  of  fancy.  We  are  then  on 
the  threshold  of  a  new  epoch,  and  the  new-born  spirit  of  chivalry 
invests  these  works  with  a  peculiar  charm.  Their  tone  is  gentler 
and  more  elevated;  the  narrative  is  more  elaborated  and  is  rich 
in  materials  drawn  from  contemporary  manners  and  events. 

At  the   same  period,  the  gleeman  assumes  a  new  character. 

-  He  is  still  the  wandering  journalist,  but  he  now  strives 
Influence  of  &  J 

chivalry  on  a'so  to  elevate,  not  only  to  amuse.      Above  the  low 

letters       jesters,   who  still  found  a  grateful  audience  in  less 

begins  in     cultivated  circles,  there  arose  a  class  of  more  refined 
llth  century.  ,       ,     .   , 

poets,  who  attached  themselves  to  the  knights,  and 

wandering  from  court  to  court,  from  castle  to  castle,  diffused  and 
fostered  more  ideal  sentiments ;  they  revived  the  German  heroic 
legends,  and  shed  a  new  glory  on  the  half- forgotten  names  of 
Siegfried,  Kriemhild,  and  Theodoric.  Thus  the  idealised  heroes  of 
the  Merovingian  poets  gave  the  first  impulse  to  the  idealism 


Ch.  in.]  The    Wandering  Journalists.  59 

of  chivalry.  In  the  tenth  century  German  poetry  was  entirely 
popular,  in  the  eleventh  it  again  became  aristocratic.  In  the 
tenth  century,  the  only  mark  of  education  was  the  knowledge 
of  Latin;  in  the  eleventh  century  a  national  culture  arose,  and 
even  a  German  verse  was  capable  of  literary  polish.  In  the  tenth 
century  the  Renaissance  of  classical  antiquity  was  exclusively 
predominant,  in  the  eleventh  came  the  revival  of  German  heroic 
song,  and  with  it  the  golden  age  of  Middle  High-German  poetry. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

CHIVALRY   AND    THE    CHURCH. 

IN  the  year  1043,  the  marriage  of  Henry  III  with  Agnes  of 

French  Poitiers  was  celebrated  at  Ingelheim.  Henry  dis- 
marriage  of  missed  the  minstrels,  who  had  collected  in  crowds,  as 
Henry  in,  was  their  wont  on  such  occasions,  in  the  hope  of 
obtaining  a  rich  reward.  They  withdrew  sorrowfully, 
but  the  king  gained  the  approbation  of  the  clergy,  whose  stern 
monastic  views  he  favoured  and  promoted.  Yet  even  amongst 
the  clergy  there  were  patriotic  men  who  shook  their  heads  at  his 
marriage.  There  was  already  a  tendency  among  the  upper  classes 
to  imitate  French  dress  and  manners,  and  they  feared  that  this 
French  marriage  would  strengthen  that  tendency  and  prejudice 
the  simplicity  of  old  German  manners. 

Happily  their  fears  were  realised.  From  the  eleventh  century 
onward  through  the  twelfth  we  notice  an  increase  of  French 

French      influence.     We    need    only    examine    the    German 

Influence,    vocabulary  to  assure  ourselves  of  this ;  foreign  words 

force  themselves  in  everywhere.     All  refinements  in  weapons  and 

Sress,  in  dwellings  and  cookery,  in  war  and  play,  in  the  chase  and 

dance,  have  French  names. 

German  chivalry  developed  itself  in  all  respects  after  the  French 
model.  In  this  development  the  Normans  played  an  important 
part,  in  so  far  as  they  became  the  connecting  link  between  the 
Romance  and  Teutonic  nations.  As  the  Germans  of  Germany 
The  proper  had  their  migration,  so,  600  years  later, 
Northmen.  tne  Germans  of  Scandinavia  had  their  Viking  ex- 
peditions. As  the  Goths  and  their  companions  had  helped  to 
bring  about  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  Empire,  so  these 
Northmen  aided  in  the  destruction  of  the  empire  of  Charlemagne. 
In  the  second  half  of  the  ninth  century  these  northern  seafarers 


Ch.  IV.]  French  Influence.  61 

founded  the  Russian  state;  soon  after,  we  find  them  plunder- 
ing the  coasts  of  the  Black  and  Caspian  Seas,  and  serving 
in  the  body-guard  of  the  Greek  Emperor.  Passing  the  Faroe 
Islands  and  Iceland,  they  reached  North  America.  In  the  begin- 
ning of  the  tenth  century,  they  founded  a  new  state  in  Normandy, 
where  they  soon  became  thoroughly  French,  though,  with  Scan- 
dinavian boldness,  they  still  formed  extensive  plans  of  conquest. 
Their  character  presented  a  marvellous  union  of  love  of  change 
with  sturdy  perseverance,  of  wild  imagination  with  sober  common 
sense,  and  this  union  of  contrary  qualities  was  the  source  of  their 
extraordinary  power. 

Normandy  in  the  eleventh  century  sent  forth  the  conquerors  of 
Southern  Italy,  Sicily,  and  England.  Side  by  side  with  the  super- 
human form  of  Gregory  the  Seventh  stand  the  characteristic  figures 
of  William  the  Conqueror  and  Robert  Guiscard.  Both  of  them  were 
his  allies,  both  were  designed  by  him  to  be  his  tools,  but  neither 
proved  to  be  sufficiently  pliable.  The  Normans,  who  arrived  on 
French  soil  as  heathens,  became  the  champions  of  Christianity. 
The  French  songs,  celebrating  Charlemagne's  struggles  with  the 
Saracens,  became  the  Norman  war-songs.  It  was  among  the 
Normans  that  the  spirit  of  Christian  chivalry  and  of  the  Crusades 
grew  up.  The  Norman  knight  was  the  type  of  a  perfect  warrior ; 
and  German  poetry  of  the  eleventh  century  derived  its  modern 
ideal  of  a  hero  from  the  Normans. 

Knighthood  was  an  institution  which  bridged  over  the  old  gulf 
between  freedom  and  slavery ;  it  broke  the  barriers  o/  caste,  and 

received  both  soldiers  and  civilians  within  its  ranks. 

Chivalry. 
It  is  true  that  at  first  the  word  Ritter  (knight)  only 

designated  the  rider,  and  more  especially  the  man  who  did  military 
service  on  horseback ;  but  the  word  soon  came  to  imply  the  idea 
of  noble,  refined  life,  and  thus  became  a  term  for  denoting  the 
ideal  of  manhood.  Knightly  society  meant  refined  society ;  such 
society  not  only  gathered  round  the  emperor  and  the  king,  but 
also  round  the  small  reigning  princes,  so  numerous  throughout 
Germany.  Chivalrous  life  meant  the  life  of  the  courts.  The 
German  words  'hiibsch'  (pretty)  from  'hofisch '  (courtly),  and 
'hoflich'  (courteous),  point  back  to  a  period  when  the  courts  of 


6a  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [ch.  iv. 

the  nobility  were  the  only  homes  of  culture  and  refinement.  In 
these  circles  was  developed  that  beautiful  Middle  High-German 
language,  whose  charm  and  melody  still  survive  for  us  in  the 
poetry  of  that  time. 

Already  in  the  eleventh  century  knightly  society  was  the  public, 
whose  tastes  poets  chiefly  considered  in  their  productions.  The 
poetry  of  this  date  either  pictures  the  manners  of  chivalry,  or 
endeavours  to  exert  an  influence  on  the  minds  of  the  aristocracy. 
Thus  far  chivalry  played  but  a  passive  part  in  the  new  develop- 
ment of  poetry.  In  the  eleventh  century  we  know  of  no  poet 
who  was  at  the  same  time  a  knight,  though  knights  would  some- 
times play  the  music  for  dancing.  It  is  only  in  the  second  half  of 
the  twelfth  century,  after  the  glorious  years  of  political  prosperity 
under  Frederick  Barbarossa,  that  knights  began  to  take  an 
active  part  in  literature.  Music  and  poetry  then  became  recog- 
nised elements  in  the  culture  of  the  aristocracy,  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  highest  and  most  refined  life  were  at  the  same 
time  the  poets  of  the  period. 

LATIN  LITERATURE. 

To  the  beginning  of  the  new  epoch  belongs  a  Latin  poem, 
written  about  1050,  of  which  unfortunately  only  fragments  have 
been  preserved  to  us.  It  seems  to  have  originated  in  Bavaria, 
and  furnishes  an  excellent  clue  to  the  changes  wrought  in  society 
by  chivalry. 

This   poem  is  called  'Rudlieb,'  and  is  the  oldest  chivalrous 

Romance   known,  and   at   the   same   time  the  first 
Latin 

romance  of  European  work  of  pure  fiction.     It  begins  that  series 
'Hudiieb,'    of  romances  which  was  continued  without  interrup- 
50'    tion  down  to  Don  Quixote,  and  was  revived  again 
by  Wieland. 

Rudlieb  is,  however,  at  the  same  time  connected  with  the  old 
German  hero-legends.  The  interest  attaching  to  a  banished  hero 
is  a  relic  of  Merovingian  times,  when  the  love  of  home  was  almost 
sentimental.  The  exile  was  designated  by  the  word  'Recke,' 
which  afterwards  acquired  a  more  general  meaning.  The  poem 
of  '  Rudlieb'  relates  the  history  of  such  a  '  Recke.'  The  general 


Ch.  iv.]  Latin  Literature.  63 

outline  of  the  story,  however,  reminds  one  strongly  of  the  pros- 
perous career  of  many  a  Norman  adventurer,  whom  domestic 
troubles  drove  to  seek  his  fortune  in  foreign  lands. 

Rudlieb,  early  left  fatherless,  has  not,  like  Hadubrand,  a  good 
master  at  home;  promises  are  made  to  him  and  never  performed, 
and  he  is  left  to  cope  with  enemies  single-handed.  He  therefore 
leaves  his  country  and  enters  the  service  of  the  king  of  Africa. 
After  staying  there  ten  years,  he  is  recalled  by  a  letter  from  his 
mother.  The  king  gives  him  sound  parting  advice,  which  stands 
him  in  good  stead  in  the  sequel  of  the  story.  After  many  ad- 
ventures he  reaches  home.  A  young  servant  standing  on  the 
watch-tower  joyfully  announces  the  arrival  of  his  master.  The 
hero  is  now  to  marry,  and  his  relations  suggest  a  maiden  who  is 
secretly  in  love  with  a  priest.  Rudlieb  knows  this,  and  whilst 
pretending  to  woo  her,  contrives  by  means  of  presents,  which 
clearly  prove  his  knowledge  of  her  secret,  to  make  her  angrily 
reject  his  suit.  He  is,  however,  destined  to  find  the  right  bride. 
A  dwarf  whom  he  gets  into  his  power  shows  him  the  treasure  of 
two  kings,  Immung  and  his  son  Hartung.  Rudlieb  kills  both, 
Herburg,  Immung's  daughter,  the  heiress  of  a  mighty  empire, 
becomes  his  wife,  and  the  former  exile  thus  wins  a  throne. 

Thus  far  we  can  make  out  the  course  of  the  story,  and  its  origin 
is  also  pretty  clear.  A  number  of  incidents  drawn  from  popular 
tales,  as  well  as  traits  derived  from  the  heroic  legends,  are  grouped 
round  Rudlieb.  In  order  to  expand  the  story,  he  is  brought  into 
contact  as  friend  or  servant  with  various  persons,  the  incidents 
of  whose  lives  offer  material  for  further  description.  Notwith- 
standing this  wealth  of  incident,  artistic  unity  is  not  lost 
sight  of.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  method  in  the  composition. 
At  the  commencement,  as  is  natural,  the  hero's  future  is 
left  quite  dark.  But  as  soon  as  he  leaves  the  African  court, 
the  writer  anticipates  and  sketches  a  plan  which  is  gradually 
carried  out.  This  anticipation  is  seen,  for  instance,  in  the  king's 
counsels  to  Rudlieb,  which  are  all  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  course  of 
the  story.  Whenever  the  hero  follows  them,  it  is  to  his  advantage. 
The  king  also  gives  him  two  loaves  filled  with  gold,  the  smaller 
of  which  is  only  to  be  opened  in  the  presence  of  Rudlieb's  mother, 


64  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  iv. 

the  larger  in  the  presence  of  his  bride.  This  incident  again  opens 
a  vista  of  expectations  to  be  fulfilled,  and  uncertainties  to  be 
removed.  Finally,  the  crowning  successes  of  the  hero  are  solemnly 
foreshadowed  in  his  mother's  dreams  and  the  dwarf's  prophecies. 

In  other  respects  the  author's  art  is  somewhat  inferior.  His 
characters  lack  individuality,  and  the  narrative  is  not  as  objective 
The  author's  as  epic  narrative  should  be,  for  the  poet  constantly 
style.  obtrudes  his  personality  upon  us  in  his  moralisings 
and  descriptions.  But  epic  breadth  and  richness  of  detail  are 
present  in  a  degree  which  German  poetry  only  attained  at  the 
close  of  the  twelfth  century.  The  meagre  style  of  the  tenth 
century  has  suddenly  given  place  to  redundance.  A  picture 
is  given  us  of  a  society  which  cultivates  refined  manners,  a 
society  whose  members,  though  conscious  of  belonging  to  a 
community,  retain  the  feeling  of  their  separate  individuality,  and 
assert  it  by  what  is  called  a  proud  bearing.  The  poet  also, 
being  a  member  of  this  society,  feels  tempted  to  describe  both 
individual  characters  and  social  forms.  We  see  the  knights 
engaged  in  various  occupations,  and  are  made  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted with  their  manner  of  life.  In  describing  a  foreign 
country  the  poet  naively  reproduces  what  he  was  acquainted  with 
at  home.  Though  he  assigns  to  Africa  its  camels  and  crocodiles, 
its  apes  and  parrots,  yet  otherwise  everything  is  just  the  same 
there  as  in  Germany ;  he  does  not  make  it  an  Oriental  fairy-land 
full  of  geographical  and  ethnographical  marvels. 

In  the  romance  of  'Rudlieb'  there  are  signs  that  the  social 
influence  of  women  is  beginning  to  assert  itself,  though  their 
standard  of  propriety  is  not  as  yet  very  high.  The  conversation 
and  jests  of  both  men  and  women  are  still  rude  and  coarse,  but 
all  licence  is  condemned,  even  loud  laughter  is  reproved,  and 
society  requires  from  women  moderate  mirth  and  gentle  smiles. 
Their  good  breeding  must  show  itself  even  in  their  deportment. 
Stateliness  is  felt  to  add  a  charm  to  women,  and  this  feeling  is 
expressed  by  a  simile  often  repeated  in  later  German  poetry ;  a 
woman  in  the  bloom  of  youth  is  compared  to  the  moon,  and 
a  maiden  is  said  to  draw  near  like  the  rising  moon.  Humane 
sentiment,  too,  which  always  springs  from  respect  for  women,  is 


Ch.  iv.]  Latin  Literature.  65 

perceptible  throughout  the  whole  poem.  The  judge  is  merciful 
to  a  repentant  sinner,  the  conqueror  to  the  defeated  foe.  There 
is  no  honour  in  avenging  an  injury;  vengeance  in  the  highest 
sense  is  the  taming  of  one's  own  anger.  Hospitality  and  bene- 
volence are  highly  praised.  Great  compassion  is  felt  for  widows 
and  orphans,  and  it  is  considered  the  duty  of  a  knight  to  protect 
them.  Family  affection  is  highly  prized  and  honoured.  Christian 
sentiment,  though  never  repressed,  is  yet  never  obtruded  upon 
us.  One  passage  alone  betrays  the  monkish  origin  of  the  work : 
the  victorious  king  of  Africa  refuses  all  presents  for  himself  and 
his  followers,  but  excepts  the  twelve  abbots  who  accompany  him, 
'  For  they/  he  says,  '  will  richly  repay  any  gift  with  their  prayers.' 

This  romance  soon  spread  from  the  cloister  to  wider  circles. 
Minstrels  introduced  it  into  German  songs,  and  continued  the  story 
further.  They  gave  to  Rudlieb  and  Herburg  a  son,  Herbort,  and 
told  how  this  Herbort  carried  off  a  Norman  maiden,  the  beautiful 
Hildeburg,  how  he  defeated  the  pursuers,  and  how  she  dressed 
his  wounds.  Herbort  also  kills  the  giant  Hugebold  with  the  sword 
Eckesachs,  given  to  his  father  by  the  dwarf.  Two  other  heroes, 
Goldwart  and  Seewart,  likewise  fall  by  his  hand,  and  finally  he 
defends  his  wife  against  Theodoric  and  his  followers.  Here  we 
have  clearly  an  imitation  of  the  legend  of  Walther  and  Hildegund, 
only  the  king  of  the  Goths  has  taken  the  place  of  the  king  of  the 
Burgundians. 

Such  was  the  intrinsic  freshness  and  popularity  of  this  romance 
that  it  ultimately  won  the  ear  of  the  people  in  spite  of  the  Latin 
dress  in  which  it  first  appeared.  Nor  was  it  only  the  lighter  forms 
of  literature  that  profited  by  this  poem.  The  same  epic  talent 
which  its  author  displays  characterises,  as  might  be  expected,  the 
annals  and  chronicles  written  by  some  of  his  learned  brother  monks. 

The  historical  writers  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  show  a 

great  improvement  in  style.    They  have  more  power  of 

Historical 
characterisation,  and  do  not  paint  everything  in  the    writing  in 

same  colours.     Religious  and  political  zeal  imparted      theilth 

fresh  life  to  the  records  of  contemporary  history,  and     and  12th 
i  11    j    /•     i         A-    •  i  •!•  •  IT  centuries, 

also   called   forth   artistic   capabilities.       Yet  only  a 

small  number  of  historians  arose,  and  of  these  none  can  be  called 

F 


66  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  IV. 

really  great,  except  perhaps  Bishop  Otto  von  Freising,  of  the  Baben- 
Otto  von  berg  family,  the  author  of  a  universal  history,  and  the 
Freising.  biographer  of  Frederick  Barbarossa.  He  was  not,  in- 
deed, a  Thucydides,  or  even  a  Livy,  but  he  wrote  universal  his- 
tory from  St.  Augustine's  point  of  view,  and  was  thus  able  to  give 
an  impressive  conclusion  to  his  work.  All  temporal  events  are  to 
him  but  a  prologue  to  eternity,  and  he  therefore  adds  to  his  narra- 
tive of  earthly  destinies  a  description  of  the  Last  Judgment.  His 
soul  is  filled  with  a  sublime  sense  of  the  mutability  of  all  earthly 
happiness ;  yet  this  does  not  hinder  him  from  paying  due  attention 
to  transitory  matters,  and  painting  earthly  things  in  glowing 
colours.  He  is  a  true  artist,  and  adopts  to  a  certain  extent 
the  forms  and  devices  of  ancient  historical  writing.  Thus,  he 
employs  the  artifice  of  imaginary  speeches,  and  graphically  de- 
scribes the  situation  of  countries  and  towns,  as  well  as  the  manners 
and  customs  of  their  inhabitants.  His  powerful  descriptions  of 
battles  and  sieges  transport  us  into  the  very  midst  of  the  scenes 
which  he  is  describing.  He  permits  himself  to  introduce  a  strong 
personal  element  into  his  narrative,  which  lends  it  a  peculiar  charm. 
Ecclesiastical  transactions,  theological  disputes,  which  he  considers 
of  importance,  are  often  very  irrelevantly  brought  in.  The  reflections 
in  which  he  indulges  savour  strongly  of  scholastic  philosophy,  but 
always  attest  the  genius  of  the  writer.  His  narrative  of  the  Second 
Crusade,  in  which  he  himself  took  part,  begins,  like  a  lyric  poem, 
with  a  description  of  the  beauties  of  Spring,  the  season  at  which 
the  Crusaders  set  out.  He  says  he  will  not  relate  the  sad  issue  of 
this  Crusade,  as  he  does  not  intend  to  write  a  tragedy,  but  a  merry 
history.  This  merry  history  is  the  life  of  Barbarossa,  while  his  earlier 
Universal  History  is  written  in  a  somewhat  tragic  tone.  It  seems  as 
if  the  freshness  and  vigour  which  characterised  Barbarossa's  govern- 
ment had  communicated  itself  to  his  biographer,  so  that  Bishop  Otto 
appears  more  closely  connected  with  the  joyous  secular  spirit  of 
chivalry  than  any  other  of  his  clerical  brethren  of  the  same  rank. 

The  chief  strength  of  chivalrous  poetry  lay  in  romances  and  lyrics, 
and  the  romance  later  on  exercised  an  influence  on  the  style  of  his- 
torical writing.  But  both  in  romances  and  lyrics  clerical  poets  set 
the  example,  and  Latin  works  prepared  the  way  for  the  classics  of 


ch.  iv.]  Latin  Literature,  6} 

chivalry.     It  is  certain  that  '  Rudlieb '  was  written  in  Germany,  but 
hitherto  it  has  proved  impossible  to  assign  any  fixed  locality  to  the 
Latin  lyrics  of  this  period.    Germany,  France,  Italy,  and  England  all 
produced  them  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries ;  Latin  lyrics, 
their  Latin  dress  conceals  all  traces  of  their  origin,     Goiiardic 
and  the  vagrant  clerk  or  dissolute  student,  who  lived      P°etry- 
by  writing  and  reciting  these  poems,  wandered  with  them  from 
country  to  country.     '  Rudlieb '  was  clearly  intended  for  a  knightly 
audience,  but  the  same  cannot  be  said  of  this  vagrant  lyric  poetry. 
Already  in  the  eleventh  century  the  old  nobles  complained  that  the 
younger  generation  would  no  longer  learn  Latin.     The  '  Vagrant,' 
the  '  Golias,'  or  '  Goliard/  amused  the  Bishop  and  Abbot,  not  the 
noble.     But    these  poets  did  not  always  confine  themselves  to 
Latin;    in   Germany  they  also   cultivated    German  poetry,    and 
initiated  the  knights  in  the  #rt.     The  roving  singer  preserved  the 
tradition  of  true  art,  and  nowhere  showed  himself  more  free,  more 
unrestrained,  more  genial,  than  in  Latin  verse.     The  Goliard  had 
a  strong  love  of  life  and  all  its  pleasures,  was  a  great  drinker  and 
gambler,  and  dangerous  to  the   peace  of  maidens ;   he  tried  to 
supplant  the  knights  in  the  favour  of  ladies,  as  is  already  seen  in 
'Rudlieb.'     He   knew   no   self-respect,    and  was   an  incorrigible 
sinner,  but  his  irregular  life  furnished  material  for  a  poetry,  remark- 
able for  its  wild  fun,  its  power  of  graphic  description,  and  its  unfet- 
tered beauty  of  form.     Coarseness  and  tenderness,  blasphemy  and 
piety,  all  moods  are  at  the  command  of  these  singers.     The  bright 
ornament  of  rhyme  seems  as  suitable  to  their  poems  as  to  the  an- 
cient hymns  of  the  Church.     Their  poetic  ideas  are  in  great  part 
drawn  from  the  ancient  treasure-house  of  Greek  and  Roman  lyric 
poetry,   which   was  thus   opened   to  the  national   literatures    of 
Western  lands.     In  these  Latin  lyrics  we  already  find  the  main 
features  of  the  mediaeval  songs  ;  the  contrast  or  harmony  between 
external  nature  and  the  lover's  feelings  is  described  after  the  manner 
of  Horace,  and  the  tradition  was  handed  on  from  the  Latin  poetry 
to  the  French  minstrels  and  the  German  Minnesanger. 

'The  Goliards'  also  established  a  truer  conception  of  gen- 
tility, the  source  of  our  modern  ideal  of  what  is  morally 
noble.  Virtue,  they  said,  was  the  only  title  to  nobility ;  nobility 

F  a 


68  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [ch.  iv. 

requires  us  to  exercise  self-restraint,  to  raise  those  who  are  fallen, 
not  to  break  the  natural  law  of  right,  to  fear  nothing  but  disgrace. 
*  The  Goliards '  not  only  indulged  in  general  satire,  but  especially 
directed  their  gibes  against  the  vices  of  the  clerical  orders.  They 
picture  Rome  as  the  ocean  with  all  its  terrors,  Scylla  and  Charybdis, 
the  Sirens  and  Syrtes;  the  Cardinals  are  pirates,  outwardly  re- 
sembling St.  Peter,  but  inwardly  like  Nero.  They  sell  Christ's 
inheritance,  thieves  and  their  associates  have  seized  on  the  pas- 
toral office,  the  Church  has  become  a  den  of  vice,  the  God  of  ven- 
geance must  soon  come  and  strike  with  His  sword  and  drive  the 
buyers  and  sellers  out  of  His  temple.  The  '  Goliards,'  like  the 
German  gleemen,  recorded  contemporary  events  in  their  poetry ; 
they  followed  the  battles  and  treaties  of  the  Emperors,  they  took 
an  active  interest  in  Oriental  affairs,  and  celebrated  in  song  the  fate 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Jerusalem. 

All  varieties  of  this  '  Goliardic  '  poetry  and  its  best  efforts  culmi- 
*  The  Arch-  nate  in  one  poet,  who  has  been  called  the  Arch-poet, 
poet.'  an(j  wno  introduces  us,  like  Otto  von  Freising,  to  the 
circle  of  Frederick  Barbarossa.  Of  knijhtly  descent,  this  poet  en- 
joyed the  special  favour  of  the  Imperial  Chancellor  and  Archbishop 
of  Cologne,  Reinald  von  Dassel,  a  highly  cultivated  and  energetic 
statesman  and  warrior,  who  inspired  the  emperor  with  the  idea  of 
a  universal  monarchy,  which  should  triumph  over  the  Papacy. 

In  the  full  and  varied  life  of  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century, 
the  ideas  of  the  Mediaeval  Renaissance  re-asserted  their  power  by 
the  side  of  the  other  tendencies  of  the  age.  We  sometimes  feel 
ourselves  transported  back  into  the  world  of  Charlemagne.  If  the 
Arch-poet  wishes  to  characterise  classical  times,  he  mentions 
Homer  and  Aristotle ;  if  he  desires  to  contrast  Christianity  with 
them,  he  instances  St.  Augustine.  And  it  was  the  same  in  politics 
as  in  the  intellectual  sphere.  Barbarossa  wished  to  be  the  successor 
Growth  of  of  the  Caesars,  not  in  name  only,  but  in  reality. 
Imperialism.  Roman  Jurisprudence,  flourishing  at  the  University 
of  Bologna,  sought  to  derive  absolute  authority  from  the  old  laws 
of  the  Roman  empire,  and  for  this  reason  Barbarossa  granted  his 
special  protection  to  the  professors  and  students,  and  even  to  the 
wandering  scholars  of  that  University  (1158),  After  the  destruction 


Ch.  iv.]  Latin  Literature.  69 

of  Milan  (i  162)  he  adopted  the  full  title  of  Charlemagne;  he  consi- 
dered the  kings  of  France,  England,  Spain,  and  Hungary  as 
Regents  of  his  provinces,  and  the  Pope  as  a  mere  imperial  offi- 
cial. By  canonising  Charlemagne,  and  causing  his  bones  to  be 
publicly  exhibited  at  Aix  before  a  great  concourse  of  people 
(1165),  he  as  it  were  declared  him  to  be  the  patron  saint  of 
the  Hohenstaufen  policy. 

Reinald,  as  chief  minister,  was  always  with  the  Emperor,  and  his 
protege,  the  Arch-poet,  has  reproduced  the  stirring  Tlie  ^j.^, 
thoughts  of  those  years,  in  noble  verses  relating  the  poet's  song 
fall  of  Milan.  He  addresses  the  Emperor  as  Lord  on  the  Fal1 
of  the  world,  the  king  appointed  by  God  above  all 
other  kings ;  he  praises  him  as  the  protector  alike  of  the  high  and 
the  lowly,  and  as  the  guardian  of  security  and  order.  The  Em- 
peror, he  exclaims,  has  overthrown  the  rebels,  like  Charlemagne, 
with  his  avenging  spear.  The  Emperor's  fame  spreads  quickly; 
the  Greek  Emperor  trembles  before  him,  as  the  flock  before  the  lion, 
Apulia  voluntarily  submits  to  him,  Sicily  longs  for  him  and  de- 
spises its  own  tyrant.  Even  in  this  poem  the  Arch-poet  does  not 
forget  to  extol  his  master,  the  mighty  Chancellor,  and  in  other 
poems  he  is  extravagant  in  his  praises,  ascribing  to  him  the  wisdom 
of  Nestor,  the  eloquence  of  Ulysses,  and  omnipotence  in  all  affairs 
of  state.  But  unfortunately  we  always  .find  these  words  of  praise 
accompanied  by  petitions  for  help,  complaints  of  hunger,  cold, 
illness,  the  dearness  of  wine  and  the  shabbiness  of  his  appareL 
In  one  splendid  poem,  full  of  beauty  and  humour,  he  relates  that  he 
was  caught  up  into  heaven,  and  heard  St.  Martin,  the  type  of  liber- 
ality, reproaching  the  Chancellor,  and  threatening  to  accuse  him  to 
God,  '  but  my  tears,'  he  continues,  '  moved  him,  for  I  wept  bitterly, 
as  I  often  do,  and  begged  him  to  spare  thee,  and  since  I  wept  so 
faithfully  for  thee,  thou  oughtest  on  this  feast-day  to  give  me  a 
noble  present.' 

The  '  Confessions '  of  the  Arch-poet  have  survived  for  centuries 
in  the  student- songs,  especially  his  verses  describing  the  reveller 
who  wishes  to  die  in  the  tavern.     '  Meum  est  pro-     Drinking 
positum  in  taberna  mori,'  says  the  Arch-poet,  or,  as       songs. 
Biirger  translated  it,  '  I  am  resolved  some  day,  by  yea  and  nay,  to 


jo  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.iv. 

die  before  the  tap  ;'  and  in  the  song  of  Goethe's  reveller, 
('  Tischlied'),  we  still  catch  an  echo  from  this  old  Latin  poet. 
But  the  Arch-poet  has  an  ulterior  purpose  in  his  Confessions; 
he  wishes  to  convince  his  benefactor  that  he  is  really  going 
to  reform,  and  his  honest  self-accusation  is  to  gain  his  pardon. 
Women,  dice,  and  wine  are  his  sins  ;  he  is  like  a  leaf  in  the  wind, 
like  a  rudderless  ship,  like  a  bird  fluttering  in  the  air  ;  no  chains  or 
locks  can  hold  him  ;  he  seeks  his  equals,  and  associates  with  the 
wicked.  Still  there  is  a  charm  in  his  verses,  and  they  will  live  as 
long  as  merry  Tavern  life  exists  in  Germany. 

The  serious  thoughts  on  imperial  grandeur  and  worldly  power, 
which  appear  in  the  Arch-poet's  melodious  Latin  rhymes,  also  found 
expression  in  a  dramatic  form,  and  were  brought  before  the  public 
in  a  dramatic  poem,  full  of  lofty  symbolism  and  happy  fancy. 
Antichrist  of  the  Revelation  was  a  character 


Old  Latin 

drama  of  which  had  much  attraction  for  the  minds  of  medieval 
Antichrist,  scholars  and  poets.  He  was  inseparably  connected 
with  all  descriptions  of  the  end  of  the  world,  and  we  already  find 
him  in  Old  High-German  verse.  As  early  as  the  tenth  century 
men  believed  that  the  Roman  Emperor  would  one  day  lay  down 
his  crown  at  Jerusalem,  and  that  when  his  empire  was  at  an  end 
Antichrist  would  appear.  A  gifted  poet,  of  strong  imperial  views, 
seized  on  this  idea,  in  order  to  impress  upon  the  world,  in  a  drama, 
that  its  salvation  depended  on  the  Emperor. 

The  piece  is  something  between  the  oratorio  and  the  opera.  It 
is  sung  throughout,  the  text  and  the  melody  being  often  repeated, 
thus  producing  a  great  simplicity  in  design  and  execution.  Dumb 
action  plays  an  important  part.  Battles,  court-receptions,  and 
other  incidents  involving  a  number  of  actors,  are  effectively  repre- 
sented in  dumb-show.  The  Temple  at  Jerusalem  forms  the  back- 
ground of  the  stage,  and  various  countries  are  represented  by  the 
royal  thrones  set  up  in  front  of  it. 

The  author  is  a  Christian  and  a  German,  but  neither  a  fanatical 
Christian,  nor  a  fanatical  German.  In  the  second  part  of  the  play 
Antichrist  appears  ;  but  the  poet  does  not,  as  we  might  expect, 
follow  Church  tradition,  and  represent  him  as  the  incarnation  of  evil, 
as  a  less  refined  dramatist  would  most  certainly  have  done.  The 


Ch.iv.]  Lady    World.  71 

hypocrites,  who  prepare  the  way  for  Antichrist,  begin  their  work 
by  complaining  of  the  secular  power  of  the  Bishops,  a  proof  that 
the  poet  considers  the  Bishops  as  the  pillars  of  the  Church,  and 
contemplates  the  world  from  the  standpoint  of  the  loyal  imperial 
prelates. 

The  poet  has  shown  great  skill  in  handling  his  subject-matter. 
Though  in  essential  respects  he  adheres  to  tradition,  he  allows  him- 
self great  freedom  in  the  development  of  his  theme ;  there  is  no 
exaggeration,  and  the  characterisation  of  the  figures  introduced 
is  very  successful.  This  artistic  and  patriotic  author  is  entirely 
dominated  by  the  ideas  of  Frederick  Barbarossa  and  his  Chan- 
cellor ;  the  Pope  does  not  appear  at  all  in  the  poem,  or  at  least 
only  in  the  train  of  the  Church,  which  is  itself  supposed  to  be  under 
the  protection  of  the  Emperor. 

The  revival  of  national  feeling  under  Frederick  Barbarossa,  which 
gave  new  aims  to  German  chivalry,  secured  also  to  German  poetry 
the  active  sympathy  of  the  nobility.  The  chivalrous  poetry  of  the 
Middle  High-German  classical  period  might  trace  its  origin  back  to 
the  sixth  decade  of  the  twelfth  century,  when  the  Emperor  con- 
quered the  Lombards,  and  caused  Charlemagne  to  be  canonised. 
The  Emperor  then  conquered  the  enemies  who  wished  to  clip  the 
wings  of  German  poetry,  and  thereby  opened  a  way  for  the  ideals 
of  a  more  refined  secular  life. 

LADY  WORLD. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  there  lived  in  Franconia 
a  knight  called  Wirent  of  Grafenberg,  the  author  of  a  Wirent  von 
romance  which  became  widely  popular.  A  few  decades  Grafenberg. 
after  his  death  the  following  story  was  related  of  him,  a  story 
which  one  of  his  successors  in  the  poetic  art,  Conrad  of  Wtirz- 
burg,  turned  into  smooth  Middle  High-German  verse. 

Wirent  von  Grafenberg  was  keenly  desirous  of  outward  distinction. 
He  possessed  everything  that  could  make  a  man  liked  and  admired. 
He  was  handsome,  brilliant,  and  well  educated,  foremost  in  the  chase, 
a  good  musician,  and  a  favourite  with  ladies,  whom  he  was  always 
ready  to  serve.  If  a  tournament  took  place,  however  far  off,  he 
would  ride  thither,  to  fight  for  the  reward  of  love.  Love  filled  all  his 


72  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  IV. 

thoughts.  One  day  he  was  sitting  in  his  chamber  with  a  love- 
romance  in  his  hand,  to  while  away  the  time  till  evening,  when  a 
lady  suddenly  appeared  to  him,  more  beautiful  than  any  living 
woman,  more  beautiful  than  Venus  or  Pallas ;  her  beauty  shone  so 
brightly  that  the  whole  room  was  lighted  up.  She  was  gorgeously 
arrayed,  and  wore  a  crown  on  her  head.  Wirent,  pale  with  alarm, 
sprang  up  and  welcomed  her.  '  Be  not  frightened'  said  she ;  '  I  am 
the  lady  for  whose  sake  you  have  so  often  risked  your  life,  whose 
faithful  servant  you  were,  whose  praise  was  ever  on  your  lips.  You 
have  flourished  like  a  green  branch  in  various  paths  of  merit. 
I  am  now  come  to  bring  you  your  reward.' 

Her  speech  sounds  strange  to  the  noble  knight,  who  has  never 
seen  her,  and  yet  is  told  that  he  has  served  her.  '  Pardon,  noble 
lady,'  he  exclaims,  '  if  I  have  served  you,  I  know  not  of  it ;  but  tell 
me  who  you  are.'  '  Willingly,'  answers  she ;  '  you  need  not  be 
ashamed  of  being  my  servant.  Emperors,  kings,  counts,  freemen, 
dukes,  all  serve  me.  I  fear  no  one  but  God,  Who  alone  is  mightier 
than  I.  My  name  is — the  World.  You  shall  have  the  reward  you 
have  so  long  desired:  behold  it!'  With  these  words  she  turned  her 
back  upon  him,  which  was  covered  with  snakes,  toads,  and  adders, 
with  sores  and  boils,  full  of  flies  and  worms.  A  loathsome  smell 
filled  the  room,  her  rich  silken  robe  looked  grey  as  ashes — and  so 
she  vanished  from  him. 

But  the  knight  learnt  from  the  vision  that  the  soul  suffers  injury 
in  the  service  of  this  world.  He  left  wife  and  child,  took  the  cross, 
fought  against  the  heathen,  did  penance,  and  won  eternal  bliss. 

I  have  told  this  realistic  story  for  the  sake  of  its  symbolical  value. 
It  bears  the  clerical  stamp  of  its  source,  and  probably  originated 
in  some  monastery,  where  the  poet  Wirent  was  a  known 
character,  whose  life  seemed  well  fitted  to  point  a  moral.  The 
Hostility  of  att'tu^e  °f  tne  clergy  towards  the  chivalry  and  poetry 
the  clergy  of  Middle  High-German  times  is  clearly  seen  in  this 
to  Chivalry.  work>  They  condemned  the  whole  spirit  of  chivalry 
as  a  base  service  of  the  world,  whose  reward  would  be  eternal 
damnation.  They  represented  all  worldly  ideals  under  the  type  of 
Lady  World.  And  this  figure  was  also  introduced  into  plaslic 
art;  we  find  Lady  World  represented,  according  to  the  descrip- 


Ch.  iv.]  Lady    World'.  73 

tion  of  Conrad  of  Wiirzburg,  on  the  porches  of  the  cathedrals  at 
Worms  and  Basle. 

It  had  not  always  been  thus.  It  was  a  monk,  Ekkehard,  who  in 
the  tenth  century  clothed  an  old  heroic  legend  in  Latin  verse.  It 
was  a  monk  who  in  the  eleventh  century  wrote  the  romance  of 
Rudlieb.  The  chief  care  of  St.  Gotthard,  on  undertaking  the  charge 
of  a  new  monastery,  was  that  his  Horace  and  Cicero's  Letters 
should  be  sent  after  him.  In  those  days  there  was  no  breach 
between  the  children  of  God  and  the  children  of  the  world,  or  at 
least  it  was  not  considered  frivolous  for  a  man  to  occupy  himself 
with  secular  literature.  But  in  the  course  of  the  eleventh  century 
all  this  was  changed.  There  came  a  revival  of  eccle-  Revived 
siastical  power,  at  first  encouraged  by  the  Emperors,  influence  of 
but  afterwards  directed  against  them.  Side  by  side  the  church- 
with  the  struggle  of  the  Popes  against  the  Emperors,  we  have  that 
of  the  clergy  against  chivalry ;  the  ideals  of  knighthood  were  con- 
demned as  mere  pride  and  worldliness,  and  an  attempt  was  made 
to  enlist  the  warlike  instincts  of  the  age  in  the  service  of  the 
Church.  Man,  it  was  said,  should  be  a  vassal  of  God,  and  should 
fight  all  his  life  against  sin  and  the  devil.  These  clerical  zealots 
would  hear  nothing  of  the  study  of  heathen  classics.  They  opposed 
secular  poetry,  and  they  denied  all  hope  of  future  bliss  to  professed 
poets,  to  the  minstrels  and  wandering  clerks.  They  condemned  epic 
poetry  as  a  tissue  of  lies,  classic  songs  and  love  lyrics  as  immoral. 
The  ideas  of  the  ninth  century  revived.  Sermons  and  spiritual 
poetry  were  to  set  bounds  to  the  encroachments  of  the  powerful 
lay  spirit,  and  to  supplant  secular  literature. 

The  preachers  depicted  minutely  all  the  various  sins  in  turn. 

They  painted  heaven  in  the  most  glowing  and  attrac- 

Sermons. 
tive  colours,  and  hell  in  the  blackest  and  most  terrible. 

Their  style  of  rhetoric,  consisting  chiefly  in  piled-up  analogies,  was 
adopted  by  the  poets,  and  produced  a  special  school  of  imaginative 
writing. 

The  religious  epic  drew  its  materials  from  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments.  Its  chief  biblical  themes  were  the  events 
related  in  Genesis,  the  earliest  history  of  the  children  of  Israel,  the 
story  of  the  heroine  Judith,  the  lives  of  John  the  Baptist  and 


74  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  IV. 

of  Christ,  and  the  Last  Judgment.  To  these  we  must  add  the 
enormous  wealth  of  sacred  legends,  forming  a  complete  Christian 
heroic  cycle,  and  running  through  the  whole  scale  from  harmless 
pious  tales  to  exciting  sensational  romances.  But  the  heroism 
which  these  legends  celebrate  is  always  the  heroism  of  suffering 
and  renunciation,  and  the  ideal  of  humility  is  contrasted  with  the 
self-reliance  of  chivalry.  Even  the  party  leaders  of  the  day,  such 
as  Archbishop  Anno  of  Cologne,  were  celebrated  in  poetry  as 
saints.  Even  the  popular  history  of  the  empire  was  narrated 
from  a  clerical  point  of  view  in  the  '  Kaiserchronik,'  and  used 
as  a  weapon  of  controversy  against  the  legendary  creations  of 
German  heroic  song.  The  'Kaiserchronik'  gives  more  prominence 
The  « Kaiser-  to  papal  affairs  than  to  imperial,  and  makes  us  realise 

chronik.'  tne  absolute  predominance  of  the  Church  after  the 
unfortunate  termination  of  the  quarrel  about  investiture.  This 
first  German  history  in  German  is  a  poetical  medley  in  which, 
along  with  genuine  history  and  much  pious  and  patriotic  feeling, 
we  find  well-rounded  tales,  frequently  in  praise  of  good  women. 
The  religious  The  religious  epic  poetry  of  the  time  offers  examples 

epic  of  the  of  all  styles ;  it  is  diffuse  and  wordy,  or  short  and  sketchy, 
nth  century,  moralising  or  amusing,  and  sometimes  even  inclining 
to  comedy.  Its  chief  charm  lies  in  the  inability  of  its  pious  and 
naive  authors  to  conceal  their  personal  feelings.  Thus,  in  describ- 
ing the  crucifixion  and  entombment  of  Christ,  the  author  apostro- 
phises one  after  another  Mary  Magdalene,  Mary  the  Mother  of 
Jesus,  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nicodemus.  'Oh,  thou  good 
Joseph,'  he  exclaims,  '  had  I  lived  then,  how  willingly  would  I  have 
helped  thee  to  take  our  Lord  from  the  cross,  and  bury  him !  And 
thou,  Nicodemus,  why  could  I  not  show  thee  some  kindness,  as  a 
reward  for  thy  faithfulness  ? ' 

Most  of  the  clerical  poets  are  personally  unknown  to  us.  They 
do  not  give  their  names  or  aspire  to  posthumous  fame,  their 
poetry  being  to  them  a  work  of  devotion.  Quite  by  chance  we  have 
some  record  of  a  nun  Ava,  who  died  in  Austria  in  1127.  She  had 
ThenunAva,  been  married  before  she  retired  from  the  world,  and 

died  1127.  had  two  sons.  They  were  most  likely  theologians,  for 
they  helped  her  in  procuring  the  materials  for  her  three  religious 


Ch.  iv.]  Lady    World.  75 

poems.  In  these  she  describes,  with  a  woman's  unpractised  hand, 
the  seven  gifts  of  the  Spirit  communicated  to  men,  the  appearance 
of  Antichrist  at  the  end  of  the  world,  and  the  Last  Judgment.  She 
is  the  first  woman  known  to  us  by  name,  who  wrote  in  German 
verse. 

Other  religious  authors  sought  to  express  the  intellectual  and 
aesthetic  instincts  of  the  time  in  various  instructive  com-  Religious 
positions.  But  we  may  well  doubt  whether  these  poetry  of  the 
works  found  much  acceptance  in  wider  circles.  What llth  centm>y- 
interest  could  be  felt  in  rhymed  geographies  and  astronomies, 
rhymed  compendia  of  theology,  or  treatises  on  the  sacred  number 
seven  ?  They  could  only  appeal  to  an  already  awakened  interest,  and 
certainly  not  attract  the  alienated  lay  spirit.  The  priests  assumed  a 
more  dangerous,  but  equally  uncompromising  tone  when  they  tried 
to  arouse  class-hatred  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  and  openly 
declared  in  their  sermons  that  the  knights  were  robbers,  or  when 
they  threatened  the  unjust  nobles  with  the  wrath  of  God,  which 
should  throw  down  their  castles,  and  against  which  their  high  walls 
could  be  no  defence. 

The  most  effective  weapon  for  breaking  the  secular  spirit,  for 
persuading  the  nobles  to  retire  from  the  world,  for  encouraging 
pious  works  and  rich  donations,  in  the  interests  of  the  Church, 
was  the  constant  harping  upon  death,  the  future  life,  and  the 
punishment  which  awaited  sinners.  The  traditional  forms  of  con- 
fession were  versified,  and  thus  repentant  sinners  were  furnished 
with  fixed  models  for  the  expression  of  their  feelings.  But  where 
a  great  character,  that  had  lived  in  the  midst  of  the  world,  was 
through  painful  experiences  forced  back  upon  itself  and  the  thought 
of  eternity,  such  an  one  would  find  other  and  more  forcible 
accents  in  which  to  preach  the  renunciation  of  earthly  joys,  and 
to  display  the  Medusa  head  of  death  to  a  society  steeped  in  luxury 
and  enjoyment.  One  poet  at  least  of  great  talents  did  arise,  who 
seems  to  have  passed  through  these  experiences,  and  whose  writings 
reflected  the  struggle  against  secularism.  This  was  Heinrich 
Heinrich  von  Mb'lk,  the  Juvenal  of  Chivalry,  the  earliest  von  M6lk, 
German  satirist,  and  among  indignant  satirists  one  Circall6°- 
of  the  greatest  and  most  bitter  to  be  found  in  German  literature. 


76  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [ch.  iv. 

He  seems  to  have  lived  about  1160,  as  a  lay-brother  in  Molk 
on  the  Danube.  His  former  chivalrous  life  sometimes  betrays 
itself.  He  still  practises  the  duty  of  gallantry  to  noble  ladies,  whom 
he  exempts  from  his  unsparing  satire.  He  does  not  condescend 
to  conceal  the  corruption  of  the  clergy,  as  loyalty  to  his  order 
might  seem  to  require.  One  poem  in  particular,  which  he  left  un- 
finished, treats  especially  of  the  life  of  the  priests.  An  earlier  poem, 
his  principal  work,  begins  with  a  somewhat  informal  introduction, 
i.e.  a  satire  on  all  classes,  in  which  bitter  truths  are  told  to  clergy  and 
laity,  to  princes  and  knights,  to  merchants  and  peasants.  After  this 
he  turns  to  his  real  subject,  the  contemplation  of  death.  This  poem 
shows  artistic  sequence,  a  well-matured  plan,  a  wealth  of  motives, 
a  variety  in  treatment  of  the  same  subject,  such  as  we  find  in  few 
mediaeval  poems.  The  poet  illustrates  the  misery  of  life  by  the 
story  of  a  prince  who  is  harassed  by  the  struggle  after  honour  and 
power,  and  the  fear  of  disloyalty  and  treason.  To  show  the 
hideousness  of  death,  he  leads  a  wife  to  the  bier  of  her  husband, 
and  reminds  her  of  all  the  joy  and  pleasure  of  life,  whilst 
pointing  in  contrast  to  the  fearful  disfigurement  of  the  corpse, 
which  he  describes  with  merciless  realism.  To  make  the  terrors  of 
death  most  powerful  in  their  effect  on  the  imagination,  he  conjures 
up  the  ghost  of  a  father,  who  has  to  describe  to  his  son  the 
torments  which  he  is  enduring.  It  is  in  these  dramatic  scenes  that 
the  poet  reaches  the  height  of  his  power.  The  strongest  human 
feelings  are  thus  powerfully  set  forth  in  threefold  gradation :  the 
happiness  of  a  high  social  position,  the  affection  which  binds  man 
and  wife,  the  love  which  unites  father  and  son.  Heinrich  von  Molk's 
rhetoric  is  most  powerful,  and  he  does  not  avoid  the  strongest 
expressions  or  shrink  from  the  ghastly,  in  order  to  gain  an 
influence  over  hardened  souls.  He  unites  all  the  qualities  which 
secure  to  the  impassioned  preacher  and  the  bitter  satirist  such 
power  over  men's  minds.  The  most  effective  things  which  could 
be  said  in  the  struggle  between  the  clergy  and  the  world  flowed 
from  his  pen. 

And  what  is  the  result  of  the  whole  poetic  struggle,  which, 
beginning  at  the  year  1060,  lasted  more  than  a  century,  and  which 
so  passionately  opposed  the  spirit  of  chivalry?  Was  the  power  of 


Ch.iv.]  Lady    World.  77 

chivalry  broken  ?  was  its  sphere  narrowed  ?  and  could  those  few 
men  of  the  world  who  embraced  the  monastic  life  offer  anything 
as  a  compensation  for  that  secular  life  which  was  ever  increasing 
in  luxury  and  strength  ? 

The  clerical  poets  and  their  guides  in  church  politics  did  not 
follow  any  preconceived  plan,  and  yet  their  actions  give  ultimate 
us  from  the  first  the  impression  of  being  based  on  such  a  triumph  of 
plan.  It  seems  as  if  they  knew  that  violent  onslaught  the  secular 
alone  would  not  succeed;  if  they  terrified  men  with 
threats  of  hell,  they  must  also  win  them  by  hopes  of  heaven  ;  if 
they  required  renunciation  of  the  world,  they  must  hold  out  the 
grace  of  God  as  compensation ;  if  they  wished  to  alienate  the  minds 
of  maidens  from  earthly  love,  they  must  show  them  Christ  in  his 
heavenly  glory  as  the  bridegroom  of  the  soul ;  if  they  wished  to  draw 
away  the  knights  from  the  homage  of  earthly  women,  they  must 
direct  their  devotion  to  the  Queen  of  heaven  ;  if  the  pleasures  of  the 
world  were  to  be  looked  on  as  the  work  of  the  devil,  the  ideal  joys 
of  the  next  life  must  be  painted  in  an  alluring  manner.  But  for  this 
purpose  only  earthly  colours  were  at  their  disposal.  Though  they 
might  give  a  spiritual  interpretation  to  the  Song  of  Solomon,  still 
the  listener,  charmed  by  its  beauty,  could  only  hear  in  it  the  tones 
of  the  old  Hebrew  Love  Song.  From  the  eleventh  century  German 
hymns  and  narrative  poems  were  dedicated  to  the  Virgin  Mary, 
but  their  original  sublime  earnestness  gradually  disappeared.  The 
Virgin,  who  was  at  first  drawn  almost  like  a  nun,  becomes  more 
and  more  like  an  earthly  queen,  whose  court  is  furnished  with  all 
the  luxuries  of  the  day.  She  is  the  type  of  the  enamoured  soul, 
which  longs  for  the  moment  of  union  with  God.  The  clerical  poet 
is  no  longer  the  inspired  preacher,  but  the  elegant  Abbe",  who  ad- 
dresses himself  to  a  spoilt  female  audience,  and  provides  them  with 
an  easy  piety.  Religious  sentimentality  is  none  the  less  sentimental 
because  it  derives  its  material  from  religion.  Instead  of  faith,  con- 
fession and  penance  breaking  into  the  realm  of  Lady  World  and 
overthrowing  her  power,  the  slavish  spirits  of  the  world  have,  on  the 
contrary,  forced  their  way  into  the  Church,  and  made  it  a  scene  of 
revelry.  In  one  word,  the  hundred  years'  struggle  between  the 
clergy  and  the  world  has  resulted  in  the  triumph  of  the  world. 


78  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  IV. 

It  is  true  that  many  ideas  and  customs  of  religious  and  ascetic 
origin,  such  as  the  meditations  on  death  and  the  transitoriness  of 
the  world,  the  Church  ordinances  and  ceremonies,  and  the  Christian 
ideal  of  humanity,  were  transferred  as  necessary  elements  into  the 
knightly  life.  The  outward  religious  consecration  was  every- 
where present.  But  the  delight  in  combats  and  tournaments,  the 
importance  attached  to  honour  and  earthly  renown,  the  joy  in 
the  beauties  of  nature  and  the  pleasures  and  refinements  of  life — all 
these  were  by  no  means  weakened,  but  rather  increased  in  power 
and  influence. 

Where  the  service  of  art  is  invoked  it  soon  gains  the  upper 
hand.  Religious  poetry  proved  one  of  the  strop  ^est  solvents  of 
the  strict  traditions  of  the  Church.  It  set  up  Natuie  by  the  side  of 
God  as  a  power  equally  entitled  to  honour.  More  thoughtful  spirits, 
who  were  not  satisfied  with  the  elegant  piety  of  the  world,  were  led 
on  to  unorthodox  paths. 

A  short  poetical  fragment  of  this  period  affords  us  a  glimpse  of 
Poetical  a  sou^  wh'cn  ^as  struggled  through  despair  to  new 
fragment,  conviction.  The  poet  describes  his  inward  develop- 
'  Comfort  in  ment  in  the  form  of  a  parable.  He  accuses  the 
heart,  the  seat  of  the  passions,  as  the  source  of  all  evil. 
He  has  so  large  a  heart  that  it  would  have  been  enough  for  a 
thousand  people.  When  he  was  born,  his  heart  had  already  taken 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  world ;  he  did  not  know  this,  and 
followed  its  counsel.  He  became  subject  to  the  devil,  and  perceived, 
when  too  late,  that  his  heart  was  leading  him  to  death.  He  wished 
to  retire  from  the  world,  but  it  held  him  by  a  thousand  artifices,  its 
poisonous  sweetness  bound  him  hand  and  foot  and  kept  him  so 
close  a  prisoner  that  he  had  no  hope  of  escape.  He  prayed  to  all 
the  saints,  but  none  would  take  pity  on  him  and  the  heavenly  hosts 
gave  him  up.  At  last  he  was  entirely  overcome  by  despair.  He 
believed  himself  predestined  to  eternal  death,  and  ceased  to  pray. 
But  unhoped-for  salvation  came  to  him.  A  mighty  lord  bade  him 
be  of  good  courage,  for  he  would  relieve  his  distress  and  heal  his 
wounds  and  leave  no  scar.  Here  the  poem  breaks  off.  Doubt- 
less God  himself  came  to  the  sinner's  rescue,  and  perhaps  the  Bible 
was  laid  before  his  despairing  eyes,  and  some  comforting  word  of 


Ch.  iv.]  The  Crusades.  79 

Christ's  solved  his  difficulties.  And  since  he  praises  voluntary 
poverty,  he  probably  employed  his  wealth  in  works  of  mercy,  and 
found  rest  for  his  soul  in  self-renunciation  and  poverty.  But  the 
man  whom  the  saints  did  not  help  could  not  have  become  an 
ordinary  anchorite.  He  must  rather  have  been  a  gentle  priest  of 
humanity,  who,  like  the  old  philosophers,  kept  aloof  from  men  with- 
out hating  them,  and  enjoyed  the  happiness  of  needing  nothing. 

But  the  Church  had  in  store  for  those  whom  the  world  could  not 
satisfy  another  resource  besides  the  cell  of  the  monk, — a  far  more 
agreeable  means  of  salvation,  the  one  which  was  chosen  by  Wirent 
von  Grafenberg,  as  we  saw  in  the  beginning  of  this  section — namely, 
the  Crusades. 

THE  CRUSADES. 

In  the  eleventh  century  a  sudden  impetus  was  given  to  the  pil- 
grimages to  Jerusalem.  In  the  eighth  century  we  hear  of  only  six,  in 
the  ninth  of  twelve,  in  the  tenth  of  sixteen  such  pilgrimages,  but  in  the 
eleventh  century  their  numbers  reached  117.  They  are,  more  than 
anything  else,  an  evidence  of  the  more  ideal  tendency  of  the  religious 
feelings  of  the  times,  a  witness  to  the  spirit  of  religious  self-sacrifice,  a 
proof  of  a  quickened  imagination,  which  desired  to  see  jiotives 
for  itself  the  scenes  of  our  Lord's  sufferings  and  death.  which 
But  apart  from  the  religious  motive,  the  Crusaders  were  prompted 
actuated  by  other  interests,  love  of  adventure,  thirst  for  the  Crusades- 
knowledge  and  a  desire  to  see  the  world,  in  fact  the  motives  which 
incite  us  to  travel.  In  the  time  of  the  Carlovingian  Renaissance 
German  monks  travelled  to  Rome,  to  search  for  the  remains  of 
classical  antiquity  and  to  collect  Roman  inscriptions.  They  soon 
extended  their  travels  to  Constantinople,  where  artistic  industry 
still  followed  classical  traditions,  and  a  gorgeous  court  displayed  its 
marvellous  wealth.  And  beyond  Constantinople  lay  the  Wonder- 
land of  the  East,  the  home  of  strange  monsters,  half-human  races 
and  other  marvels  according  to  mediaeval  geography  and  natural 
history,  and  containing,  they  thought,  the  site  of  the  original  Paradise. 

It  was  a  master-stroke  of  papal  policy  to  enlist  in  its  service  by 
mears  of  the  Crusades  all  the  love  of  adventure  pent  up  in  the 


80  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  IV. 

West,  all  the  curiosity  and  belief  in  miracles  so  common  in  the 
middle  ages.  The  authority  of  the  papacy  was  immeasurably 
strengthened  by  the  Crusades.  The  fertile  brain  of  Gregory  the 
Seventh  originated  the  idea,  his  successor  gave  it  life,  and  the 
Norman  lords,  the  born  friends  of  all  adventure,  were  foremost 
among  those  who  carried  it  into  effect. 

In  the  year  1064  some  of  the  German  spiritual  princes  had  under- 
Pilgrimage  taken  a  pilgrimage,  in  which  all  Europe  joined.  They 
of  1064.  had  to  go  through  hard  fighting  before  reaching  their 
go.xl,  and  of  the  7000  who  set  out  only  2000  returned.  The  First 
Crusade,  set  afoot  in  1095,  was  chiefly  undertaken  by  French 
knights.  But  the  news  of  victory  excited  men's  minds  in  Germany 
also,  and  in  the  year  1 100  many  Germans,  particularly  from  Bavaria, 
took  the  cross,  most  of  them  to  perish  unknown.  From  the  year 
1147  tne  German  kings  and  emperors  assumed  the  leadership 
of  the  crusading  armies,  Conrad  III  as  the  slave  of  the  Church, 
Frederick  I  as  the  rival  of  Church  authority,  Frederick  II  as  the 
enemy  of  the  Pope.  These  three  Emperors  represent  three  stages 
in  the  development  of  religious  thought  and  of  the  relation  between 
Church  and  State.  Many  renowned  German  princes  took  part  in 
these  and  other  crusades ;  many  renowned  knights,  known  to  us  as 
German  poets,  joined  the  holy  armies,  and,  from  the  eleventh 
century  onwards,  we  can  often  prove  or  conjecture  a  connection 
between  German  poetry  and  these  pilgrimages. 

The  spirit  of  the  pilgrimage  of  1064  is  fully  expressed  in  a  Song 

written  shortly  before  by  a  priest,  Ezzo  of  Bamberg,  at  the  command 

of  his  bishop,  and  set  to  music  by  another  priest,  Willo,  also  of 

Song  by     Bamberg.     It  is  one  of  the  most  important  religious 

Ezzo  of      poems  of  the  time,  and  called  forth  a  special  school  of 

Bamberg.    po^y.     jn  the  midst  of  the  German  a  Latin  verse  is 

occasionally  introduced.    It  embraces  the  whole  biblical  story  in 

twenty-eight  stanzas,  and  introduces  much  popular  theology,  while 

preserving,  on  the  whole,  the  tone  of  a  hymn.     Christ's  life  and 

miracles  form  the  centre  of  the  poem.     The  poet  leads  us  on  with 

great  solemnity  from  the  darkness  of  primitive  times  to  the  brilliant 

heights  of  future  bliss.     He  gives  the  favourite  spiritual  interpretation 

to  the  deliverance  of  the  Israelites  from  Egypt ;  Pharaoh  is  the 


Ch.  iv.]  The  Crusades.  81 

devil,  our  old  enemy,  who  wishes  to  keep  us  out  of  our  inheritance, 
but  our  leader  is  so  mighty  that  under  his  guidance  we  shall  win 
the  promised  land.  The  holy  Cross  is  thus  apostrophized,  '  Oh, 
blessed  Cross,  thou  art  the  best  of  all  trees,  thy  branches  bore  the 
heavenly  burden,  the  holy  blood  watered  thee,  thy  fruit  is  sweet 
and  good,  it  has  redeemed  the  human  race.  Oh,  Cross  of  the 
Saviour,  thou  art  our  mast,  this  world  is  the  sea,  God  the  Lord 
steers  us,  good  works  are  the  ropes,  faith  is  the  sail,  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  the  wind,  leading  us  on  the  right  way — heaven  is  the  home 
where  we  shall  land,  thanks  be  to  God.'  The  song  seems  written 
on  purpose  to  be  sung  on  pilgrimage,  and  to  give  utterance  to  the 
feelings  of  the  crusaders.  The  Cross  ever  before  them  as  a  holy 
symbol,  the  sea  voyage,  the  combats  on  the  way  to  a  far  off  holy 
land — all  this  must  have  had  a  specially  close  and  pathetic  signifi- 
cance for  those  who  were  really  on  the  road  to  Palestine,  and  who 
desired  to  deliver  the  holy  land  from  the  Paynim. 

Williram's  prose  translation  and  paraphrase  of  the  Song  of  Solo- 
mon, dating  from  about  the  same  time  as  Ezzo's  hymn, 

'  Williram's 

faithfully  reproduced  the  rich  imagery  of  the  original,    paraphrase 
and  displayed  to  the  reader  the  splendour  of  an  Oriental  of  the  Song 
court.     This  theme  was  adopted  by  the  minstrels,  who  of  Solomon- 
dedicated  special  songs  of  praise  to  King  Solomon,  and  represented 
him  as  a  pattern  for  Christian  princes.  Like  Williram  and  his  prede- 
cessors, they  regarded  Solomon  as  typical  of  Christ,  interpreted  his 
bride  as  the  Church,  and  the  pillars  of  his  throne  as  the  bishops. 
In  the  lighter  strain  of  the  rabbinical  legend  they  described  him  as 
the  '  wise  king '  to  whom  the  spirits  were   subject  and   who  built 
the  temple  by  supernatural  power.     They  laid  hold  of  an  old  tradi- 
tion which  told  of  his  contest  with  Marcolfus  or  Morold,  in  which 
proverb  was  matched  against  proverb,  and  the  king's  lofty  ideal  was- 
contrasted  with  Morold's  baser  view  of  life.     These      p      , 
two  characters  furnished  them  with  the  materials  for      romance, 
an  amusing  love  romance  in  the  jesting  style  of  the     '  Solomon 
ten'.h   century,    in    which   Morold    appeared    as   the a 
bold  accomplice  of  King  Solomon.    Jerusalem  and  the  surrounding 
country  thus  became  a.  universally  recognised  theatre  for  romantic 
deeds. 

G 


83  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  iv. 

But  it  was  not  till  1125  that  a  poetry  arose  with  real  power  to 
kindle  the  crusading  spirit.  This  poetry  may  have  influenced  the 
crusade  of  1147,  preached  by  Bernard  of  Clairvaux.  Exploits  allied 
to  those  of  the  Crusaders  engaged  the  attention  of  two  priests, 
Konrad  and  Lamprecht ;  the  one  described  Roland's  struggles  with 
the  Saracens,  the  other  the  Oriental  campaigns  of  Alexander.  Both 
were  forerunners  of  the  poetry  of  chivalry,  but  both  were  in  opposition 
to  the  national  heroic  poetry.  Both  sought  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  idealism  of  chivalry  for  clerical  purposes.  They  are  the  first 
poets,  known  by  name,  who  made  French  works  accessible  to  a 
German  public.  Both  translations  are  in  the  style  of  the  popular 
poetry  of  the  time,  and  neither  reveals  a  strong  poetic  individuality. 
Konrad  translated  the  French  national  epic,  the  '  Chanson  de 
_  ,,  Roland,'  the  most  celebrated  poem  of  Christian 
•Rolands-  chivalry.  It  treats  of  Charlemagne's  expedition  to 
lied,'  Spain,  of  the  death  of  Roland  through  the  treachery 
rca  '  of  Ganelon,  of  Charlemagne's  revenge  on  the  Moors, 
and  the  punishment  of  the  traitor.  This  poem  now  .rouses  in 
France  the  same  patriotic  feelings  as  seventy  years  ago  the 
Nibelungen-Lied  did  in  Germany  ;  but  the  German  priest 
of  the  twelfth  century  naturally  looked  upon  it  from  a  dif- 
ferent point  of  view.  The  subject  seemed  to  him  to  belong  to  the 
history  of  his  fatherland,  while  it  was  at  the  same  time  half  legend- 
ary in  character;  the  first  would  please  the  German,  the  second 
pleased  the  priest.  The  great  emperor  was  no  longer  remembered 
in  German  popular  poetry,  and  in  the  recollection  of  the  nation 
he  survived  only  as  a  lawgiver  and  impartial  judge,  while  his  deeds 
and  his  heroes  were  forgotten.  Through  the  medium  of  the  French 
'Chanson  de  Roland'  his  memory  was  revived,  and  to  the  imagina- 
tion of  Frederick  Barbarossa  he  appeared  once  more  as  an  ideal  of 
political  wisdom.  The  work  of  Konrad,  which  was  begun  in  1130, 
at  the  court  of  the  Guelph  Duke,  Henry  the  Proud,  produced  a  great 
effect.  It  long  continued  to  be  read,  and  underwent  successive  altera- 
tions to  suit  the  change  of  taste,  till  about  the  year  1300,  when  it  was 
incorporated,  with  other  stories  of  the  same  cycle,  in  a  bulky  Carlo- 
vingian  poem,  the  '  Carlmeinet.'  The  legend  of  the  'Chanson  de 
Roland '  was  the  production  of  a  rude  age,  and  reflects  all  the  harsh- 


ch.  iv.]  The  Crusades.  83 

ness  and  intolerance  of  the  Carlovingian  epoch.  Konrad  makes 
the  pathos  of  the  religious  struggle  the  leading  idea  of  his  poem. 
He  strengthened  the  piety  of  the  original  without  thereby  increasing 
its  artistic  value.  All  outward  events  become  more  indistinct  in 
Konrad's  rendering,  while  the  speeches  reflecting  feelings  are  much 
elaborated.  He  describes  battles  and  combats  less  graphically  than 
the  French  poet,  but  he  has  cut  down  exaggerations,  and  has  raised 
the  moral  tone  of  the  whole  and  added  many  beautiful  and  impres- 
sive sayings.  Much  of  his  imagery  must  have  been  borrowed  from 
the  popular  poetry. 

While  Konrad  lays  special  stress  on  the  religious  feelings  which 
were  excited  by  the  crusades,  the  bigotry,  the  hatred  of  Islam  and 
the  delight  of  fighting  against  the  false  prophet  Mahomet,  his 
colleague  Lamprecht,  on  the  contrary,  represents  the  secular  feelings 
which  found  vent  in  Oriental  expeditions.  The  work  of  Konrad 
deals  with  an  obscure  and  barbarous  age,  while  that  of  Lamprecht 
breathes  the  spirit  of  the  most  refined  Alexandrian  culture.  Lam- 
precht translated  the  French  'Song  of  Alexander'  by  Lamprecht's 
Aubry  of  Besai^on;  a  poem  which  traced  its  origin  'Alexander- 
through  various  steps  to  a  life  of  the  Macedonian  king,  lied" 
written  at  Alexandria,  a  kind  of  ancient  historical  romance.  After 
the  short  story  of  Alexander's  youth  the  author  relates  his  great 
and  successful  campaigns.  Then  follow  the  legendary  wonders  of 
the  East,  whither  Alexander's  victorious  career  carries  him.  He  is 
even  said  to  have  penetrated  as  far  as  Paradise,  but  not  to  have 
been  permitted  to  enter  there. 

If  the  '  Rolandslied '  encouraged  intolerance,  the  '  Alexanderlied/ 
on  the  contrary,  breathes  a  thoroughly  humane  spirit.  In  the 
former,  Franks  and  Saracens  are  opposed  to  each  other  as  merciless 
and  cruel  enemies ;  in  the  latter,  the  Greek  shows  chivalrous  respect 
to  the  Persian,  and  foe  is  merciful  to  foe.  The  poem  is  written  in 
a  sympathetic  spirit,  and  although  the  author's  object  is  to  glorify 
Alexander,  yet  his  heart  is  also  moved  by  the  grief  of  the  van- 
quished Persians.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  private  feelings 
of  the  priest  Lamprecht,  his  poem  ranks  among  those  works  of  the 
tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  which  were  written  in  imitation  of 
classical  models,  and  were  rather  allied  than  opposed  to  the  secular 

G  2 


84  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  iv. 

spirit.  The  seriousness  of  historical  biography  is  modified ;  great 
deeds  are  interwoven  with  tender  episodes,  and  a  most  charming 
idyll  is  introduced  into  the  life  of  the  great  conqueror  in  the  story 
of  the  flower-fairies  with  whom  Alexander  and  his  heroes  spend 
three  months  of  happiness  in  the  spring  time.  This  and  other 
adventures,  some  of  them  very  childish,  are  related  by  the  king  in 
a  letter  to  his  mother  Olympias  and  his  teacher  Aristotle.  Even 
a  Circe  is  not  wanting  in  this  land  of  magic,  nor  prophecies 
concerning  the  future,  so  that  we  are  involuntarily  reminded  of 
Odysseus  and  his  narrative  to  the  Phaeacians. 

Most  of  the  Oriental  and  crusading  poems  might  be  compared 
Shorter  epics  w'*n  *ne  Odyssey.  The  twelfth  century  did  not  pro- 
of the  12th  duce  any  classical  Odysseys  of  real  importance,  but  it 
century.  furnished  several  smaller  epics,  many  of  which  survived 
long  in  popular  tradition.  Such  were  '  King  Rother/  '  Duke  Ernst,' 
'  St.  Brandan/  '  Solomon  and  Morold,' '  King  Orendel,'  and  '  St.  Os- 
wald.' Lamprecht  had  many  successors  among  the  wandering  glee 
men.  These  poets  of  the  people  also  borrowed  much  from  Latin  and 
French  sources,  but  they  handled  their  originals  with  greater  bold- 
ness and  less  pedantry  than  their  classical  colleagues.  They  were 
Style  of  the  not  mere  servile  imitators  of  foreign  models,  but  ven- 
gleemen.  tured  on  original  composition,  finding  ready  materials 
either  in  the  heroic  legends,  or  in  the  later  historical  traditions,  or  in 
the  latest  news  from  Palestine.  They  were  very  fond  of  well-known 
themes,  such  as  the  banished  hero,  or  the  wooing  and  abduction  of 
the  bride,  and  they  laid  the  scene  of  their  poems  either  in  Con- 
stantinople or  in  Jerusalem.  Their  tone  is  either  profane,  or  else 
pious  to  absurdity.  In  fact  they  seize  on  every  opportunity  for 
exaggeration.  They  revel  in  large  numbers,  they  aim  throughout 
at  realistic  effects,  and  they  miss  no  chance  of  a  joke.  They 
delight  in  placing  their  hero  in  danger  of  his  life,  and  then,  before 
setting  him  free,  they  make  an  artificial  pause  and  ask  for  a  drink. 
Their  style  of  narration  is  lively,  if  not  so  hurried  as  that  of  their 
predecessors  of  the  tenth  century.  They  do  not  care  about  variety, 
and  in  similar  situations  they  employ  the  same  words.  They 
repeat  incidents,  and  often,  under  pretence  of  having  made  a  mis- 
take, they  break  off  suddenly  and  begin  the  story  all  over  again,  so 


Ch.iv.]  The  Crusades.  85 

that  their  audience  may  pass  through  the  thrilling  scenes  once 
more.  But  with  all  this  carelessness  of  style,  their  epic  technique 
has  a  certain  merit ;  the  course  of  the  narrative  is  not  hindered 
by  long  descriptions,  and  the  progress  is  everywhere  merry  and 
rapid. 

'  Konig  Rother '  and  '  Herzog  Ernst '  are  works  of  a  higher  stamp 
than  the  rest.  Their  authors  are  of  higher  rank,  and  ,  . 
move  in  better  society.  The  author  of '  Konig  Rother'  Bother '  and 
turned  to  the  heroic  legends  for  his  story,  while  the  '  Herzog 
author  of  '  Herzog  Ernst '  enlarged  on  an  historical  Ernst-' 
subject  which  we  have  already  noticed  as  having  been  treated  by 
the  journalistic  poets1.  The  former  is  well  acquainted  with  Con- 
stantinople ;  he  deals  in  anecdotes  of  the  crusade  of  the  year  noo, 
and,  like  the  priests  Lamprecht  and  Konrad,  he  prepared  the  way 
for  the  second  Crusade.  The  latter  endeavoured  to  bring  the  Holy 
Land  within  the  German  horizon,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the 
third  Crusade.  Both  these  poets  introduce  us  to  the  highest  sphere 
of  earthly  rank.  In  drawing  his  King  Rother,  the  poet  probably 
had  before  his  eyes  the  Norman  Count  Roger  of  Sicily,  the  most 
celebrated  man  of  his  time,  as  a  German  chronicler  calls  him ;  but 
he  represents  him  as  living  in  earlier  times,  makes  him  the  grand- 
father of  Charlemagne,  and  the  head  of  the  German  empire.  The 
author  of  the  second  poem  chose  the  stepson  of  an  emperor  as 
his  hero.  Both  poets  probably  wrote  in  Bavaria  and  for  Bavarians. 
The  former  must  have  written  after  the  recognition  of  the  power  of 
Duke  Henry  the  Proud  by  the  Emperor  Lothar.  The  latter  most 
probably  worked  at  the  Court  of  Henry  the  Lion,  and  introduces 
incidents  drawn  from  the  Crusade  of  this  Prince  (1172).  By 
silently  contrasting  Duke  Ernst  and  Duke  Henry  he  helped  to 
bring  about  the  defection  of  his  master  from  the  Emperor. 

The  following  is  the  plot  of  '  Herzog  Ernst.'     Ernst  is  ruler  over 
Bavaria.    His  mother,  Adelheid,  becomes  the  second  wife  of  the  Em- 
peror Otto.    The  Emperor  adopts  the  duke  as  his  son,      story  of 
and  makes  him  his  confidential  adviser.    But  envy  and      'Herzog 
calumny  soon  sow  dissension,  and  Ernst,  at  length  re-       Ernst.' 
duced  to  despair,  and  enraged  to  the  uimost  against  his  enemy,  the 

1  P.  56. 


86  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  iv. 

Count  Pal  itine  Henry,  kills  him  in  presence  of  the  Emperor,  de- 
claring that  he  would  have  slain  his  stepfather  also,  had  he  been  in 
his  power.  After  this  highly  dramatic  scene  Ernst  takes  refuge  in 
flight ;  he  is  laid  under  the  ban  of  the  empire,  and  his  country 
is  invaded.  After  five  years'  resistance,  he  takes  the  cross,  goes 
through  wonderful  adventures,  makes  offerings  at  the  Holy  Sepul- 
chre, and  fights  in  Jerusalem  against  the  heathen.  He  returns 
and  first  makes  himself  known  to  his  mother,  and  then,  in  the 
Cathedral  at  Bamberg,  he  falls  during  service  at  the  Emperor's 
feet,  who  pardons  him  without  knowing  who  he  is.  In  all  his 
vicissitudes,  a  friend  and  companion  of  his  youth,  Count  Wetzel, 
remains  faithful  to  him.  The  lighter  emotions  of  love  are  hardly 
touched  upon  in  this  poem.  Only  once  is  a  maiden  introduced, 
such  as  usually  meet  the  heroes  of  legend,  and  excite  their  affection. 
Duke  Ernst  does  indeed  save  a  captive  maiden  from  her  oppressors, 
but  she  is  left  dead  in  his  arms. 

Two  historical  traitors  to  the  imperial  power  are  united  in  the 

Historical  Person  of  lhe  legendary  Duke  Ernst — i.  e.  Ludolf,  the 
basis  of  the  son  of  Otto  the  Great,  and  Duke  Ernst  of  Suabia, 
legend.  stepson  of  Conrad  II.  Even  in  the  song  of  the 
eleventh  century  the  hero  was  doubtless  represented  as  being  put 
under  the  ban  of  the  empire,  and  perhaps  as  leaving  the  country. 
The  poet  of  the  twelfth  century  uses  this  incident  in  order  to  ascribe 
to  him  a  crusade  and  many  fabulous  adventures  in  the  style  of  the 
Alexanderlied.  In  the  thirteenth  century  two  great  Middle  High- 
German  poems  treated  this  same  subject,  which  ended  by  circulat- 
ing as  a  ballad  and  popular  romance. 

Side  by  side  with  this  tale  of  the  wanderings  of  a  German  prince 

« St.  Bran-  may  be  placed  a  poem  relating  the  travels  of  the  monk 
dan-'  St.  Brandan,  which  brings  again  before  us  the  fame  of 
the  Irish  monks.  Brandan  reads  of  a  subterranean  world,  where  it 
is  day  whilst  we  have  night.  Vexed  at  the  improbability  of  this 
story  he  burns  the  book,  and  as  a  punishment  has  to  experience 
much  stranger  things  than  this  on  a  long  sea-voyage.  He  has 
terrific  encounters  with  devils,  and  many  episodes  of  a  farcical 
character  are  introduced,  such  as  that  of  the  monk  who  had  stolen 
a  bridle,  or  of  Brandan's  coat  falling  into  the  sea. 


Ch.  iv.]  The  Crusades.  87 

The  story  of  '  King  Orendel'  reminds  us  yet  more  vividly  of  the 
Odyssey.  It  must  have  been  founded  on  some  song  ,  King  Oren. 
containing  ancient  mythological  matter.  With  the  dei,'!2tli 
ancient  Germans  Orendel  was  the  genius  of  navi-  century, 
gation,  a  personification  of  favourable  weather.  In  late  autumn 
Orendel  suffers  shipwreck,  and  becomes  subject  to  an  Ice-giant, 
Master  Ise.  He  is  cast  naked  on  the  shore,  and  covers  his  naked- 
ness, like  Ulysses,  with  a  bough.  By  slave's  service  he  earns  a 
grey  coat,  in  which  he  returns  unrecognised  in  the  spring-time 
to  his  own  country.  And  after  he  has,  like  Ulysses,  conquered  the 
suitors  who  besiege  his  wife,  he  is  received  by  her  with  joy.  In  the 
minstrel  ballad  of  the  twelfth  century  which  has  come  down  to  us, 
Orendel's  wife  is  transported  to  Jerusalem  and  made  the  daughter 
of  King  David.  The  Knights  Templars  serve  and  protect  her  ; 
she  takes  part  armed  in  the  conflict  with  the  heathen,  like  a 
Walkiire  or  Amazon.  Though  she  receives  Orendel  as  one  well 
known  and  long  expected,  yet  when  he  suffered  shipwreck  he  was 
on  a  crusade  and  knew  nothing  about  her.  He  now  becomes  King 
of  Jerusalem,  and  when  the  city  falls,  in  his  absence,  into  the  hands 
of  the  heathen,  he  recovers  it  by  the  help  of  his  wife.  The  poet 
has  made  a  '  Gerusalemme  Liberata '  out  of  the  mythological 
legend.  He  knows  the  names  of  a  few  places  in  Palestine,  and 
also  a  little  about  the  state  of  the  kingdom  after  the  capture  of  the 
Holy  City  by  Saladin  in  1187.  His  intention  doubtless  was  to 
comfort  the  mourning  Christians  with  a  hope  of  its  recovery.  He 
trusts  implicitly  in  Divine  help  :  as  soon  as  his  hero  is  in  danger, 
the  Virgin  Mary  prays  to  her  Son  for  him,  and  angels  hasten  to 
help  him.  The  author  thus  gains  a  '  deus  ex  machina,'  such  as 
a  Greek  or  Roman  epic  poet  could  avail  himself  of.  He  also  appeals 
thereby  to  pious  minds,  and  by  making  the  grey  coat  of  Orendel 
typical  of  the  seamless  coat  of  Christ,  he  gives  to  his  work  quite  the 
character  of  a  sacred  legend.  But  he  is  not  of  a  pious  disposition 
himself.  He  makes  no  sharp  distinction  between  Christians  and 
heathen,  and  never  leads  his  readers  into  the  world  of  spiritual 
experience.  In  this  respect  the  author  of '  St.  Oswald' 
fully  resembles  him.  The  Crusade  which  he  describes 
is  also  really  a  journey  in  quest  of  a  bride.  The  talking  raven  of 


88  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [ch.  IV. 

the  tale  is  a  half-miraculous,  half-comic  element.  A  heathen 
maiden  is  carried  off  by  fraud ;  the  pursuers  are  defeated,  killed, 
raised  from  the  dead,  and  baptized.  But  we  look  in  vain  here  for 
the  seriousness,  not  to  say  the  religious  pathos  of  the  '  Rolandslied.' 
The  Priest  Konrad  stands  alone  in  this  respect.  The  gleemen 
sought  only  to  amuse  their  audience  by  stories  of  the  East,  and  of 
the  struggle  with  the  Paynim,  and  cared  little  to  edify  them.  The 
supremacy  of  '  Lady  World '  was  not  broken  by  the  Crusades,  on 
the  contrary,  they  placed  new  weapons  in  the  hands  of  her  servants; 
and  so  also  the  moral  result  of  the  Crusades,  their  influence  on  the 
spirit  of  chivalry,  consisted  only  in  the  destruction  of  intolerant 
bigotry  and  the  reconciliation  of  those  who  formerly  were 
foes. 

The  Crusades,  though  they  sprang  from  intolerance,  resulted 
in  an  increase  of  toleration.  Though  they  seemed  to  express  a 
triumph  of  the  Papacy,  yet  they  proved  in  the  end  prejudicial  to  its 
interests.  It  was  wise  of  Frederick  Barbarossa  to  make  the  deliver- 
ance of  Jerusalem  one  of  his  objects,  and  thus  assert  in  this  direction 
the  supremacy  of  the  empire.  In  theory  Palestine,  like  all  other 
countries  of  the  earth,  was  under  his  protection. 

The  Latin  play  of  Antichrist,  which  we  have  mentioned,  had 
already  set  forth  this  idea,  and  even  in  wider  spheres  men  were 
accustomed  to  look  upon  the  power  of  the  emperor  as  universal. 
'Count  Bu-  An  authentic  proof  of  this  is  afforded  us  in  a  German 
dolf,' 1170.  poem,  'Count  Rudolf,'  written  in  1170,  which  at  the 
same  time  gives  us  a  clear  idea  of  the  hostile  and  friendly  relations 
between  Christians  and  heathen  in  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem. 
Count  Rudolf,  the  hero  of  the  poem,  is  a  Christian  Coriolanus. 
Having  quarrelled  with  his  brethren  in  the  faith,  he  joins  the 
heathen,  in  order  to  fight  with  them  against  the  Christians.  Probably 
the  Count,  tired  and  purified  by  many  sufferings,  returned  at  last  to 
the  ranks  of  the  faithful.  I  say  probably,  because  this  beautiful  tale, 
like  so  many  others  that  especially  excite  our  interest,  is  only  pre- 
served to  us  in  fragments.  Poems  reflecting  real  life  and  choosing 
their  materials  from  contemporary  history  found  little  acceptance 
with  a  mediaeval  public,  which  preferred  tales  of  a  phanlastic 
and  marvellous  character.  Hence,  copies  of  poems  like  'Count 


Ch.  iv.]  The  Crusades.  89 

Rudolf  were  seldom  multiplied,  and  it  is  only  by  a  happy  chance 
that  fragments  of  them  have  come  down  to  posterity.  What 
remains  of  '  Count  Rudolf  is  throughout  free  from  the  over- 
refinement  of  later  chivalrous  romances.  It  is  plain  human  life 
which  is  pictured  to  us,  free  from  the  artificialities  of  conven- 
tion. The  narrative  flows  on  simply  and  clearly,  yet  at  times 
the  personal  sympathy  of  the  poet  breaks  out.  Sometimes  he 
shows  his  enthusiasm  for  his  hero,  and  thanks  those  who  are 
kindly  disposed  to  him ;  sometimes  he  utters  his  own  feelings 
in  weighty  language,  and  expresses  his  hatred  of  faithless  coun- 
sellors or  his  admiration  of  noble  women.  In  the  course  of 
the  story  he  gives  vent,  in  a  naive  manner,  to  his  imperiai 
imperial  leanings.  The  King  of  Jerusalem  wishes  to  leanings  of 
introduce  imperial  ceremonial  and  magnificence  at  his  tlie  author- 
court,  fancying  himself  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  emperor; 
Count  Rudolf,  who  understands  such  matters,  is  to  aid  him  in  the 
arrangements.  But  Rudolf  begins  to  laugh  and  says,  '  If  you 
usurp  imperial  customs,  it  may  be  the  worse  for  you ;  the  emperor 
has  no  equal,  your  whole  land  would  be  forfeited.'  The  dominion 
of  the  German  Emperor  is  thus  tacitly  extended  to  Jerusalem,  and 
it  is  assumed  that  a  word  from  him  would  be  enough  to  destroy  the 
whole  fabric  of  usurpation.  And  yet  it  is  only  a  question  of 
harmless  ceremonial. 

But  the  time  soon  came  when  the  German-Roman  emperor 
really  seemed  to  have  extended  his  dominion  to  Extension  of 
Jerusalem.  On  the  i8th  of  March,  1229,  the  excom-  the  Imperial 
municated  emperor,  Frederick  II,  took  a  golden  power, 
crown  from  the  high  altar  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  placed  it 
on  his  head.  A  German  poet,  Meister  Freidank,  who  had 
joined  the  emperor's  army,  described  in  short  epigrams  the 
condition  of  things  at  Acre.  '  There  is  no  difference,'  he  says, 
'  between  Christian,  Jews,  and  heathens  at  Acre.'  And  the  honest 
Swabian  seems  not  to  have  felt  quite  at  his  ease  in  this  inter- 
national throng.  Frederick's  whole  Oriental  policy  was  founded 
on  the  idea  of  the  possibility  of  peaceable  intercourse  between 
Christians  and  Mohammedans,  and  this  policy  was  only  the  prac- 
tical outcome  of  that  religious  toleration  which  had  for  some  time 


90  Chivalry  and  the  Church.  [Ch.  iv. 

exercised  such  a  beneficial  influence  on  the  minds  of  Europe. 
We  shall  find  this  spirit  of  toleration  still  more  strongly  expressed 
later  on  in  some  of  the  chivalrous  poets,  in  Wolfram  von  Eschen- 
bach,  Walther  von  der  Vogehveide,  and  Freidank. 

In  fact,  Middle  High-German  poetry  in  its  most  famous  repre- 
sentatives is,  like  our  modern  classic  literature,  founded  on  the 
principle  of  toleration.  And  in  the  thirteenth  as  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  rise  of  fanaticism  and  persecution  betokened 
the  decay  of  literature. 

Signs  of  the  same  liberal  spirit  are  not  wanting  in  the  science 
of  this  epoch.  The  classic  period  of  the  Middle  Ages  reverenced 
Aristotle  as  a  profound  thinker,  but  most  of  his  works  remained 
unexplored  till  Frederick  II  caused  Jewish  scholars  to  translate  the 
Translation  Arabic  texts  of  Aristotle  with  their  Arabic  commen- 
of  Aristotle,  taries  into  Latin,  and  thus  opened  these  treasures  to 
Western  science.  To  the  Arabs  belongs  the  literary  merit  of 
the  work,  the  Jews  were  the  instruments,  the  Christian  emperor 
originated  the  scheme.  The  adherents  of  all  three  religions  worked 
together  to  breathe  fresh  life  into  the  greatest  philosopher  of 
antiquity. 

Frederick  II  stands  at  the  head  of  the  political  and  scientific 

movements  of  his   time.      He   gave  to   politics  the 
Frederick  II.  . 

model   of  a   state    organized   according   to  modern 

ideas;  he  endowed  science  with  the  Latin  version  of  Aristotle; 
he  united  in  himself  the  most  vigorous  features  of  that  Italic- 
Norman  life  in  the  midst  of  which  he  grew  up.  Perhaps  nowhere 
does  the  modern  German  experience  so  overpowering  a  feeling  of 
the  nearness  of  the  spirit  of  mediaeval  Imperialism,  as  when  he 
finds  himself  in  the  sombre  landscape  of  Palermo,  at  the  foot  of 
the  beautiful  Monte  Pellegrino,  and  pictures  to  his  imagination  the 
half  Saracenic  court  of  Frederick  II,  and  then  stands  beside  the 
two  gloomy  but  magnificent  coffins  in  the  Cathedral  of  the  Sicilian 
capital,  only  separated  by  a  slab  of  porphyry  from  the  earthly 
remains  of  Henry  VI  and  his  great  son. 

Frederick  II  was  the  last  great  champion  of  the  temporal  power 
against  mediaeval  sacerdotalism.  He  seemed  almost  a  super- 
natural being  in  the  eyes  of  the  Italian  people.  They  would  not 


ch.  iv.]  The  Crusades.  91 

believe  that  he  was  really  dead,  and  their  disbelief  spread  to  Ger- 
many. False  Fredericks  appeared,  and  when  these  passed  away  the 
idea  soon  became  current  that  he  would  come  again  at  the  head 
of  a  large  army  to  reform  the  degenerate  church.  Till  then  he 
was  supposed  to  sleep  in  the  Kiffhauser,  or  some  other  mountain. 
There  he  sits  at  a  stone  table,  and  his  beard  has  grown  to  his  feet. 
If  any  one  approaches  him,  he  asks  whether  the  ravens  are  still 
flying  round  the  mountain.  If  they  are,  he  must  sleep  another 
hundred  years.  It  was  not  till  much  later  that  the  sleeping  emperor 
was  supposed  to  be  Frederick  Barbarossa,  and  not  till  this  century 
that  he  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  symbol  of  the  vanished  dominion 
of  the  German  people. 


CHAPTER  V. 


MIDDLE    HIGH-GERMAN    POPULAR    EPICS. 

IN  the  history  of  German  civilisation  we  notice  from  early  times 
a  difference  between  the  Rhine  provinces  and  South 

7       Germany  on  the   one  hand,  and  the   Lowlands  of 
in  literature  * 

by  the  Germany,  particularly  the  territory  of  the  Saxons, 
various  dis-  on  the  other.  Lower  Saxony  had  been  one  of  the 

earliest  homes  of  the  Germans,  whereas  the  Rhine- 
Grermany. 

land  and  South  Germany  were  won  from  the  Celts 
and  Romans  in  later  times.  The  traces  of  the  older  civilisation 
in  these  parts  were  never  quite  obliterated,  and  exercised  a  good 
influence  on  the  conquerors.  It  was  by  their  own  free  will  that 
the  Germans  carried  some  elements  of  this  civilisation  to  the  North; 
while  in  the  West  and  South  they  simply  yielded  to  an  irresistible 
influence  due  not  only  to  the  past  and  therefore  temporary,  but 
rendered  permanent,  as  it  would  seem,  by  their  geographical  sur- 
roundings. Romanic  culture  continued  to  radiate  from  France  and 
Italy  to  West  and  South  Germany.  The  French  influence  asserted 
itself  almost  uninterruptedly,  while  the  Italian  influence  was  more 
fitful  in  its  operation.  In  the  end  we  can  distinguish  three  districts 
in  Germany  clearly  marked  out  from  each  other  by  their  leading 
characteristics : — the  Rhine,  Lower  Saxony,  and  Austria,  i.  e.  Upper 
and  Lower  Austria,  with  Styria,  Carinthia,  and  Tyrol.  In  Bavaria, 
and  later  on  in  Thuringia,  we  observe  a  kind  of  compromise  in 
which  these  differences  become  reconciled  and  neutralised. 

When  the  Carlovingians  wished  to  create  a  Christian  literature, 
Lower  Saxony  was  drawn  almost  by  force  into  the  movement. 
But  the  '  Heliand '  remained  a  solitary  achievement.  During  the 
Carlovingian  Renaissance  German  poetry,  as  a  branch  of  written 
literature,  almost  entirely  vanished.  We  do  not  even  know  at 


ch.  v.]  The  Revival  of  the  Heroic  Poetry.  93 

what  time  alliteration — which  certainly  continued  longer  in  Lower 
Saxony  than  elsewhere — finally  gave  place  to  rhyme.  But  the 
popular  poetry,  handed  down  by  oral  tradition,  did  not  entirely 
disappear.  The  heroic  songs,  whilst  retreating  further  and  further 
from  the  Rhine  and  South  Germany,  found  a  refuge  The  hero. 
in  Lower  Saxony,  though  only  among  the  middle  legends  in 
and  lower  classes.  The  Saxon  national  legends  were,  Saxony, 
in  consequence,  almost  entirely  forgotten,  and  their  place  was 
taken  by  the  Gothic-Frankish  hero-legends.  The  Germanic  heroes, 
banished  from  the  castles,  took  refuge  in  the  huts  of  the  peasants, 
there  to  wait  for  the  time  when  they  might  emerge  from  obscurity, 
and  assume  once  more  their  place  of  honour.  But  during  this 
time  of  banishment  the  legends  underwent  some  modification. 
The  achievements  of  those  Saxons  who  had  restored  the  empire 
in  the  tenth  century  reflected  fresh  glory  on  these  old  hero- 
legends.  The  redoubtable  Gothic  king,  Ermanarich,  was  trans- 
formed first  into  a  king  of  the  Germans  reigning  in  North 
Germany,  and  afterwards  into  a  Roman  emperor.  The  Italian 
campaigns  revived  the  memory  of  Theodoric  the  Great,  the 
Dietrich  von  Bern  (Verona)  of  later  Middle  High-German  poetry; 
and  when  the  German  soldier  gazed  in  wonder  at  vast  buildings 
like  the  amphitheatre  at  Verona,  or  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo  in 
Rome,  he  thought  he  saw  before  him  a  work  of  that  Dietrich  who, 
in  olden  times,  had  reigned  so  gloriously  over  the  Amdungen, 
for  the  name  of  the  Goths  was  forgotten  and  replaced  by  that 
of  their  royal  family.  The  German  legends  and  songs  spread  to 
foreign  countries — to  Denmark,  Russia,  Poland,  Bavaria,  Hungary, 
and  Italy,  and  the  wandering  Saxon  minstrel  learned  the  legends 
of  other  lands,  and  wove  the  tales  of  foreign  heroes  into  German 
song. 

THE  REVIVAL  OF  THE  HEROIC  POETRY. 

French  influence  is  not  perceptible  in  Geiman  popular  poetry 
until  the  eleventh  century,  the  time  of  the  rise  of  chivalry. 
At  that  period  the  Lower  Rhine  began  to  play  an  important 
part  in  German  poetry.  The  gleeman  of  the  Rhine  learned 
from  his  Saxon  brother  how  some  of  his  poetic  material  had 
come  to  him  from  France  by  way  of  the  Netherlands.  The 


94  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

Rhenish  gleeman  also  had   at  his  command   the  whole  mass  of 

Poetry  of  Lower  Saxon  legends  and  songs.  And  it  was  not 
the  gleemen.  oniy  Up  the  Rhine  that  he  wandered ;  even  in  Upper 
Bavaria  we  find  traces  of  his  presence,  while  from  Holland  he 
brought  back  the  legend  of  Gudrun. 

The  German  knight  found  food  for  his  romantic  aspirations  in 
the  old  heroic  ideals  set  before  him  by  the  gleemen.  And  not  the 
knights  only,  but  the  bishops  too,  cared  sometimes  to  listen  to  the 
stories  of  the  Nibelungen  and  the  Amelungen.  But,  as 
tween  the  we  have  seen,  a  clerical  reaction  set  in,  which  sought  to 
clergy  and  destroy  the  activity  of  the  gleemen  throughout  the  whole 
en<  of  South  and  West  Germany,  and  to  undermine  the 
power  of  a  secular  code  of  morals  founded  on  honour  and  self- 
respect.  The  result  was  very  different  in  different  parts.  On  the 
Rhine,  and  in  Allemania  and  Thuringia,  the  clergy  succeeded  in 
supplanting  the  German  heroes  by  the  champions  of  the  faith, 
the  destroyers  of  the  heathen  and  the  Crusaders.  The  French 
influence,  represented  at  first  by  clerical  poets  like  Lamprecht  and 
Konrad,  also  exercised  its  power  on  the  gleemen. 

The  Austrian  provinces,  however,  retained  their  independence. 
The  Austrian  clerical  poets  being  stricter,  treated  purely  religious 
subjects  only,  and  in  consequence  could  not  hold  their  own  against 
the  gleemen.  And  in  Bavaria,  as  we  noticed  before,  these  opposing 
forces  were  reconciled.  There,  gleemen  and  clerical  poets  were 
equally  welcome.  They  sang  of  Gudrun,  King  Rother,  and  the 
dying  Roland,  and  the  Kaiserchronik  is  likewise  of  Bavarian  origin. 

Heroic  poetry  reached  its  zenith  in  Austria  and  Bavaria.     There 

those  immortal  epics  arose  which,  about  the  close  of  the 

3  °       twelfth  century,  were  fortunately  rescued  from  the  acci- 

Austria,  dents  of  oral  tiansmission,  and  written  down  on  parch- 
Bavaria,  and  ment.  But  in  Lower  Saxony  the  gleeman  remained,  as 

310  ^r  a  rule,  sole  master  of  the  poetic  art,  and  was  content 
merely  to  transmit  his  songs  by  word  of  mouth.  It  was 
only  occasionally  that  a  Saxon  knight  or  priest  appeared  as  a  poet. 
The  whole  treasure  of  the  Low  German  heroic  poetry  of  that  time 
would  have  been  entirely  lost  to  us,  had  not  a  learned  Norwegian 
of  the  thirteenth  century,  who  took  an  interest  in  these  songs  and 


ch.  v.]  The  Revival  of  the  Heroic  Poetry.  95 

legends,  written  down  their  substance,  grouping  them  round  the 
character  of  Dietrich  von  Bern,  and  thus  forming  them  into  a 
Prose  Romance  or  Saga.  This  work,  entitled  the  The  <Thia_ 
'  Thidrekssaga,'  gives  us  some  idea  of  what  the  Saxon  rekssaga,' 
songs  must  have  been.  As  a  rule  they  continued  the  13th  century, 
style  of  the  journalistic  minstrel  poetry,  which  prevailed  in  the 
tenth  century:  i.e.  concise  narrative,  delighting  in  incident,  striving 
after  bold  effects,  shrinking  from  no  coarseness,  and  lacking  any 
deeper  insight  into  human  character  or  moral  problems.  Now 
again,  as  in  the  sixth  century,  the  German  heroic  legends  pene- 
trated to  the  North,  not  only  through  this  Norwegian  Saga,  but 
also  through  the  living  popular  songs.  There  are  Danish  and 
Faro  songs  based  on  Low  German  ones  which  have  been  lost, 
and  the  Faro  songs  are  to  this  day  sung  as  an  accompaniment 
to  the  dance  on  those  far  off  islands. 

In  Bavaria  and  Austria  the  development  of  the  heroic  song  took 
another  course.  It  gained  more  epic  breadth  and  fulness  of  detail, 
while  its  rivalry  with  the  clerical  poetry  wrought  some  change  in 
its  subject  matter.  The  priest  had  the  advantage  of  knowing 
Latin,  as  well  as  of  being  familiar  with  history.  Armed 
with  these  he  attacked  the  heroic  legends,  and  found 
it  easy  to  prove  that  Attila  and  Theodoric,  the  legen-  cismon 

dary  Dietrich  and  Etzel,  were  not  contemporaries,  thus  heroic  poetry 

i_  •      •         xi_  r  ^        i  •    *.  •   •  in  Austria 

bringing  the  veracity  of  the  gleemen  into  suspicion.  and  Bavaria 

The  charge  was  a  serious  one,  for  all  narrative  poetry 
was  expected  to  be  true  history.     The  result  was  that  the  gleeman 
made  false  appeals  to  fictitious  historical  authorities,  and  so  ren- 
dered himself  really  liable  to  the  charges  of  falsehood  made  against 
him. 

There  is  another  kind  of  criticism,  which  we  cannot  so 
clearly  trace,  but  which  must  also  have  been  applied  to  these 
legends.  The  Nibelungen  legend  originally  contained  a  number 
of  mythical  elements  alike  repugnant  to  Christian  Removal  or 
beliefs  and  to  the  comparative  enlightenment  of  modification 
the  twelfth  century.  The  giants,  dwarfs,  and  dragons,  of  mythical 
the  fabulous  elements  in  the  story  of  Siegfried's 
youth  and  in  the  nature  of  Brunhild,  were  as  much  as  possible 


g6  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [ch.  v. 

eliminated.  The  legend  was  thus  made  more  perfect,  being  freed 
from  superhuman  elements.  All  the  mythological  elements  were 
kept  in  the  background,  and  it  is  evident  that  they  did  not  excite 
so  much  interest  as  the  more  strictly  historical  portions,  connected 
with  well-known  localities. 

The  legend  must  also  have  been  submitted  to  moral  censorship, 
Improved  for  all  features  that  could  possibly  give  offence  to 
moral  tone,  refined  feminine  feeling  were  expunged,  hardly 
to  the  extent  perhaps  which  modern  taste  might  demand,  but 
we  must  remember  that  those  were  times  of  greater  simplicity 
than  ours. 

In  the  oldest  version  of  the  legend  there  is  a  close  connection 
between  Siegfried  and  Brunhild.  He  has  awakened  her  from  her 
magic  sleep,  she  has  initiated  him  in  hidden  wisdom,  and  they 
have  sworn  to  be  true  to  one  another.  But  a  draught  of  oblivion 
given  him  by  Kriemhild's  mother  makes  him  faithless ;  he  marries 
Kriemhild,  and  helps  her  brother  Gunther  to  win  Brunhild  for 
himself.  But  Brunhild  has  not  forgotten  the  injury,  and  has 
her  revenge.  She  drives  the  faithless  but  still  loved  Siegfried 
to  destruction,  and  dies  with  him.  Later  times  evidently  took 
offence  at  Siegfried's  relation  to  the  two  women.  The  later 
version  of  the  legend  omits  almost  all  mention  of  his  earlier  con- 
nection with  Brunhild,  and  seeks  another  foundation  for  those 
incidents  which  the  story  could  not  afford  to  lose.  Thus  the 
moral  purity  of  the  young  ill-fated  hero  remained  untarnished. 

Kriemhild  as  the  avenger  of  Siegfried  is  horrible,  for  her  own 
brothers  are  her  victims  ;  and  this  formed  such  an  essential  part  of 
the  legend  that  it  could  not  well  be  altered.  In  the  Saxon 
tradition  Kriemhild,  when  she  sees  that  two  of  her  brothers  have 
fallen,  thrusts  a  torch  into  their  mouths  to  find  out  if  they  are 
really  dead.  According  to  another  tradition,  she  strikes  off  with 
her  own  hand  the  heads  of  the  two  who  lie  bound  before  her. 
But  the  South  German  form  of  the  legend  rightly  expunged  such 
barbarities,  and  made  another  person  the  victim  of  Kriemhild's 
unnatural  deeds.  Here  again  a  more  refined  moral  feeling  has 
raised  the  poetry  to  a  higher  level. 

Among  all  the  subjects  of  heroic  legend,  that  which  is  pre- 


Ch.  v.]  The  Revival  of  the  Heroic  Poetry.  97 

served   to   us   in    the   Nibelungenlied    seems   to    have    held   the 
highest  place.    It  excited  the  strongest  clerical  op-   s        .    it 
position  ;  it  formed  the  greatest  pride  of  the  minstrel,        Of  the 
and    was   in    favour   in   the    highest    circles.      The  Nibelungen 
lofty    tone    of   the    Nibelungenlied    in    its    original        egen  ' 
form  indicates  that  it  was  addressed  to  a  highly  cultured  audience ; 
and   the  exact  knowledge   which  it  displays  of  Lower  Austrian 
localities  renders  it  probable  that  the  poems  about  Siegfried  and 
the  Burgundians  were  first  recited  at  the  court  of  Vienna.     For, 
towards  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century,  it  was  no  longer  the  custom  to 
sing  poetical  narrations,  but  to  declaim  them  or  read  them  out. 

Few  of  the  other  heroic  legendary  poems  maintained  the  high 
moral  and  aesthetic  level  of  the  Nibelungenlied.     The 
sympathy  of  refined  society  was  withdrawn  from  these  heroicpoetry 
poems  in   the   thirteenth  century,  when  French  in-    in  the  13th 
fiuence  penetrated  even  to  the  valleys  of  the  Alps.      century. 
And  as  soon  as  the  popular  poems  began  to  be  adapted  for  a 
lower  audience,  they  lost  their  purity  and  serious  tone.     Authors 
wished  to  maintain  the  popularity  of  these  poems  by  foolish  con- 
cessions to  fashion ;  they  strove  after  realistic  effects ;  they  seized 
on  a  few  rags  of  chivalry,  and  decked  the  old  heroes  with  them, 
but  only  to  their  degradation. 

Still,  if  we  consider  the  leading  ideas  of  these  poems,  there 
reigns  in  all  of  them  a  high  moral  tone.  The  leading  characters 
in  their  salient  features  recur  in  the  most  various  poems,  and  we 
easily  perceive  that  in  these  characters  we  have  moral  ideals 
bequeathed  from  days  long  past,  that  the  situations  in  which  they 
are  placed  are  thoroughly  out  of  keeping  with  chivalry,  and 
that  all  knightly  elements,  and  even  Christianity  itself,  are  as 
a  rule  a  mere  outside  varnish  that  has  not  penetrated  very  deep. 
So  faithful  was  tradition,  and  so  true  the  instinct  which  guided 
the  opposition  of  the  clergy  to  the  heroic  poems. 

The  heroic  legends  grew  up  in  the  time  of  the  migration  of 
races  and  in  the  Merovingian  period,  and  it  was  the  „.  , 

last  of  these  two  epochs  that  exercised  the  best  in-  character  of 
fiuence   on   them.     The   kings   who    appear  in   the    the  heroio 
popilar  poems  resemble  the  Merovingians  and  the 

H 


98  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

Amals  rather  than  the  Hohenstaufen  and  Guelphs.  The  state  is 
supposed  to  be  the  property  of  the  whole  royal  family.  Important 
acts  of  government  are  only  carried  out  with  the  consent  of  the 
friends  of  the  blood  royal,  and  the  fiction  of  blood-relationship  is  ex- 
tended to  nearly  all  those  surrounding  the  throne.  Honoured 
and  faithful  ministers  guide  the  young  princes,  and  rule  the 
kingdom  with  power  and  wisdom.  Throughout  their  lives  they 
are  looked  upon  as  counsellors  of  authority,  and  their  opinion  is 
willingly  listened  to.  The  king  is  surrounded  by  a  train  of  com- 
panions in  arms,  who  are  always  ready  to  sacrifice  themselves  for 
him,  while  he  in  his  turn  bestows  gifts  on  them  with  a  liberal  hand, 
and  frees  them  from  prison  and  distress,  even  at  risk  of  his  own 
life.  The  financial  resources  of  the  kingdom  are  represented 
under  the  idea  of  a  vast  and  inexhaustible  treasure.  Precious 
weapons  are  handed  down  from  father  to  son,  and  acquire  a  fateful 
import  in  bold  deeds  and  hideous  crimes.  Even  women  demand 
that  bloodshed  should  be  avenged,  and  vengeance  does  not  stop 
short  of  total  destruction. 

Ludwig  Uhland  has  rightly  divided  all  the  various  characters  of 

the  heroic  legends  into  two  groups :  the  loyal  and  the 
Conception  J 

of  character  disloyal.  The  duty  of  liberality  is  connected  with 
in  the  heroic  loyalty,  and  avarice  is  a  sign  of  disloyalty.  Self- 
poetry,  sacrifice,  the  root  of  all  virtues,  first  appears  within 
the  family  circle,  then  in  the  society  at  court,  and  in  com- 
panionship in  arms.  As  the  lord  and  his  vassals  are  bound 
together  by  a  general  bond,  so  the  vassals  are  often  connected 
with  each  other  by  some  peculiar  tie,  and  afford  beautiful  ex- 
amples of  heroic  friendship.  Over  and  above  the  duties  imposed 
by  natural  ties,  or  by  alliances  expressly  agreed  upon,  it  is 
esteemed  honourable  and  glorious  for  a  warrior  to  relieve  distress 
in  strangers  and  to  aid  the  oppressed.  Action  is  free,  so  far  as 
it  does  not  conflict  with  a  warrior's  code  of  honour. 

Violated  faith  amongst  relations  is  the  chief  cause  of  all  the 
complications  of  the  heroic  legends.  When  two  parties  are  once 
on  a  fooling  of  enmity  their  friends  often  find  themselves  in  a 
dilemma.  Loyalty  to  a  friend  cnlails  determined  treachery  to  an 
enemy;  loyally  to  one  who  has  been  basely  muulued  leads  i.o 


Oh.  v.]  The  Revival  of  the  Heroic  Poetry.  99 

treacherous  revenge  on  all  his  living  enemies ;  the  duties  of  a 
vassal  come  into  conflict  with  family  duties,  and  a  marriage  often 
becomes  the  source  of  a  feud.  The  woman  who  was  to  form 
a  connecting  link  between  two  houses  suffers  by  her  twofold 
position,  and  whilst  trying  to  fulfil  her  conflicting  duties,  the  flame 
of  her  shortsighted  passion  may  become  a  firebrand  destroying  both 
houses.  The  spirit  of  chivalrous  self-sacrifice,  which  instead  of 
deriving  a  brutal  pleasure  from  warfare,  regarded  it  as  a  high  and 
honourable  calling,  breathed  a  new  life  into  the  old  heroes.  They 
were  typical  examples  of  a  noble  secular  life,  a  life  of  fighting  and 
of  many  duties.  A  fervent  enthusiasm  for  the  profession  of  arms 
inspires  every  line  of  the  Middle  High-German  heroic  poems. 
The  men  are  always  described  with  solemn  emphasis  as  heroes, 
warriors,  swordsmen,  and  knights. 

Though  the  heroic  poetry  remained  on  the  whole  true  to  its 
origin,  still  it  underwent  some  modification  in  the  „  ,  , 
course  of  centuries.  New  characters  were  admitted  modification 
who  bear  witness  to  this  influence  of  the  times.  Side  of  the  hero 
by  side  with  the  dignity  and  nobility  of  the  chief 
characters  we  perceive  in  some  of  the  subordinate  ones  the  coarse 
minstrel  humour  of  the  tenth  century,  which  loudly  applauded 
a  Kuno  Kurzibold.  In  Wolfhart,  nephew  of  the  old  Hildebrand, 
with  his  violent  disposition  and  boundless  love  of  fighting,  his 
bloodthirstiness,  his  loud  voice  and  rough  jokes,  and  his  aversion 
to  the  society  of  refined  women,  we  recognise  the  earlier  and  far 
from  ideal  type  of  warrior.  The  courtly  dignity  of  the  chief  cook 
had  already  been  humorously  treated  in  the  older  Latin  poems, 
and  Rumold,  the  chief  cook  in  the  Nibelungenlied,  is  a  represent- 
ative of  unimaginative  common  sense  :  he  advises  the  Burgundians, 
when  about  to  march  against  Attila,  to  '  stay  at  home  and  earn 
their  bread  honestly.'  So  also  the  union  of  the  warrior  and  the 
musician  in  the  noble  fiddler  Volker  von  Alzei  had  probably  at 
first  a  humorous  significance;  but  as  soon  as  the  position  of  the 
minstrels  was  raised,  and  they  were  admitted  in  Bavaria  and 
Austria  into  good  society,  this  character  was  also  idealised.  After 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  the  knights  began  to  write  love- 
poems,  to  set  them  to  music,  and  to  sing  them.  Thus  there 

H  2 


loo  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.          [Ch.  v. 

were  undoubtedly  many  instances  of  the  union  of  the  professions 
of  arms  and  of  minstrelsy  in  the  same  individual. 

All  this  poetry  is  anonymous.  The  few  names  known  to  us 
German  belong  to  a  comparatively  late  time,  and  the  works 
heroic  poems  connected  with  them  are  of  no  great  value.  In  the 
anonymous.  best  periO(j  of  Middle  High-German  poetry  we  must 
be  contented  with  the  poems  themselves,  without  the  name  of  the 
author.  We  must  respect  the  voluntary  obscurity  in  which  these 
poets  modestly  hid  themselves.  They  had  no  desire  for  literary 
fame  and  did  not  wish  their  names  to  be  handed  down  to 
posterity ;  they  willingly  retired  behind  those  heroes  in  whose 
favour  they  wished  to  enlist  the  sympathies  of  their  hearers.  This 
concealment  of  the  author's  iuentity  is  in  harmony  with  the 
impersonal  style  of  the  poems  themselves.  The  epic  popular  poet 
of  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  sometimes  speaks  in  his  own 
person,  but  it  is  merely  a  form  of  speech.  He  advances  his 
personal  reflections  as  if  they  were  generally  received  opinions, 
and  they  often  serve  to  foreshadow  the  future  course  of  events. 
Nor  do  these  poets  allow  themselves  originality  in  depicting 
characters,  things,  and  events.  Throughout  the  different  poems 
the  same  types  of  character  are  adhered  to,  for  in  this  respect,  as 
well  as  in  their  literary  style,  the  authors  bow  to  tradition. 

The  heroic  poems  of  the  Middle  High-German  epoch  like  the 
Style  of      popular   epics    of    Merovingian    times,    are    full   of 
the  heroic    conventional    phrases   and  ideas,  out  of  respect  to 
poems.       which   the   poet   is  content   to   forego    all   personal 
originality.      We    do   not    find    in    these    poems    the    grandeur 
and  pictorial  breadth  of  Homeric  description;  on  the  contrary, 
the    style    is    throughout    perfectly    simple.      The    heroes    and 
heroines  are  characterised  by  such  epithets  as  brave,  bold,  beauti- 
ful; sometimes  these  are  emphasised   into  very  brave,  bold  as  the 
storm,  wonderfully  beautiful ;  sometimes  they  denote  the  leading 
characteristic  of  the  person  to  whom  they  are  applied,  as  when 
Riidiger  is  called  the  generous,  Kckhart  the  faithful,  Hagen  the 
cruel.     The  descriptive  element  is  confined  to  the  most  ordinary 
epithets ;  such  expressions  as  a  white  hand,  a  red  mouth,  bright 
eyes,  yellow  hair,  are  perpetually  recurring.     There  are  no  detailed 


Ch.  v.]  The  Nibelungenlied.  101 

poetical  similes,  and  the  poet's  imagination  never  goes  beyond  the 
very  simplest  comparisons,  as,  for  instance,  of  the  colour  of  young 
cheeks  to  the  roses,  of  the  rude  love  of  fighting  to  the  wild  boar, 
of  a  malicious  disposition  to  a  wolf.  Every  mood  has  its  conven- 
tional outward  demeanour  :  the  afflicted  man  sits  silently  upon  a 
stone,  and  the  man  who  has  formed  a  resolution  speaks  not  a  word 
until  he  has  carried  it  out.  A  downcast  eye  betokens  dejection, 
an  upward  glance  joy,  silent  contemplation  inquiry,  while  turning 
pale  and  then  red  denotes  a  rapid  change  of  mood.  In  the  same 
manner  remarks  about  stature,  garments,  and  weapons  are  only 
made  from  a  few  fixed  points  of  view.  All  the  occupations  of 
hero-life  are  reduced  to  conventional  formulas,  and  though  so 
many  means  are  at  the  poet's  command  for  the  poetic  glorification 
of  battle,  yet  the  popular  epic  writers  seem  only  to  have  aimed  at 
giving  powerful  expression  to  its  most  horrible  aspects.  So  too 
the  various  localities  in  which  different  events  take  place  are  seldom 
more  than  vaguely  indicated.  In  fact,  the  poet  never  concen- 
trates all  his  powers  upon  one  point,  and  hardly  ever  goes  into 
detail.  In  this  respect,  as  in  others,  the  style  of  the  German 
popular  epics  is  inferior  to  the  ideal  narrator,  Homer. 


THE    NlBELUNGENLIED. 

From  the  earliest  times  the  Germans  used  the  falcon  in  hunting 
and  in  their  poetry  the  fighting,  hunting  falcon  served  as  the  emblem 
of  a  youthful  hero.  Flashing  eyes  reminded  the  mediaeval  poet  of 
falcons'  eyes,  and  a  noble  lady  of  the  twelfth  century  who  has 
won  the  love  of  a  man  expresses  this  in  poetry  by  saying  that 
she  has  tamed  a  falcon.  So  too,  in  the  opening  of  the  Nibe- 
lungenlied,  we  read  how  Kriemhild  dreamt  in  her  girlhood  of 
a  falcon  which  she  had  spent  many  a  day  in  taming,  but  to  her 
lasting  sorrow  two  eagles  tore  it  to  pieces  before  her  eyes. 
This  dream  of  gloomy  foreboding  foreshadows  the  events  related 
in  the  first  half  of  the  poem.  Siegfried  is  the  falcon,  his  brother- 
in-law  Gunther  and  Gunther's  vassal  Hagen  are  the  eagles  who 
tear  him  to  pieces,  and  Kriemhild  weeps  for  him  and  will  not 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNTA 
SANTA  BARBARA  COLLEGE  L1BRAR- 


IO2  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

be  comforted.  The  carrying  out  of  her  horrible  revenge  forms 
the  subject  of  the  second  part.  She  gives  her  hand  in  marriage 
to  the  king  of  the  Huns,  and  invites  the  murderers  to  a  feast, 
which  she  turns  into  a  massacre.  With  wooing  and  betrothal  the 
tale  opens,  with  murder  and  fire  it  closes,  very  like  in  this  to 
the  legend  of  the  siege  of  Troy.  But  the  Nibelungenlied 
does  not  merely  consist  of  certain  episodes  selected  from  the 
legend,  but  exhausts  the  whole  of  the  legendary  material,  thereby 
attaining  a  higher  degree  of  unity  than  the  Iliad. 

The  closeness  with  which  this  poem  links  a  crime  and  its  punish- 
ment is  characteristic  of  an  ideal  world,  such  as  the  spirit  of  a  nation 
yet  in  its  you.h  dreams  of  and  desires.  The  heroes  of  the  Iliad,  on 
Inequalities  l^e  contrarv>  witn  their  naive  selfishness  are  nearer 
of  the  the  level  of  ordinary  humanity.  But  notwithstanding 
Nibeiungen-  the  outward  and  inward  completeness  of  the  legend, 
the  merit  of  the  poem,  as  in  the  Iliad,  varies  in  dif- 
ferent parts ;  and  these  differences  are  much  greater  than  in  the 
Iliad.  Side  by  side  with  the  most  beautiful  scenes  we  meet  with 
dull  and  sometimes  even  grotesque  passages,  through  which  we 
painfully  make  our  way.  Whilst  the  best  parts — if  we  leave  the 
difference  of  style  out  of  consideration — may  fairly  compare  with 
the  noblest  flowers  of  Homeric  poetry,  we  can  hardly  venture  to 
mention  the  name  of  Homer  in  connection  with  the  inferior  ones. 
This  Middle  High-German  Epic  is  like  an  old  church,  in  the 
Imilding  of  which  many  architects  have  successively  taken  part, 
some  of  whom  have  scrupulously  adhered  to  the  original  designs 
of  their  predecessors,  while  others  have  arbitrarily  followed  their 
own  devices ;  little  minds  have  added  paintings,  scrolls,  and  side- 
wings,  and  Time  has  thrown  over  the  whole  the  grey  veil  of  age, 
so  that  the  general  impression  is  a  noble  one  ;  yet  severer  criticism 
will  reject  the  excrescences,  explore  the  architectural  history,  dis- 
tinguish in  it  the  work  of  various  hands,  assigning  to  each  master 
his  own,  before  judgment  can  be  passed  on  the  artistic  design  and 
execution  of  the  whole. 

Karl  Lachmann  attempted  the  work  of  restoring  the  Nibelun- 
genlied and  analysing  its  various  elements,  and  accomplished  the 
task,  not  indeed  faultlessly,  yet  on  the  whole  correctly.  He  has 


Ch.v.]  The  Nibelungenlicd.  103 

pointed  out  later  interpolations,  which  hide  the  original  sequence 
of  the  story,  arid  has  divided  the  narrative  which  remains  after 
the  removal  of  these  accretions  into  twenty  songs,  Lachmann's 
some  of  which  are  connected,  while  others  embody  criticism  of 
isolated  incidents  of  the  legend.  Some  of  them,  but  tlie  Poem- 
certainly  only  a  few,  may  be  by  the  same  author.  Small  as  is 
the  scope  left  for  poetical  individuality  to  show  itself  in  the  Middle 
High-German  heroic  poetry,  yet  we  recognise  in  most  of  these 
songs  such  differences  in  conception,  treatment,  and  style,  as  point 
to  separate  authorship.  The  whole  may  have  been  finished  in 
about  twenty  years,  from  1190-1210. 

Lachmann's  theory  has  indeed  been  contested.     Many  students 

still  believe  that  the  poem,  as  we  have  it,  was  the  work 

r         '  Single  or 

of  one  hand ;  but  on  this  hypothesis  no  one  has  sue-  divided 
ceeded  in  explaining  the  strange  contradictions  which  Authorship 
pervade  the  work,  parts  of  which  show  the  highest  ofthePoem- 
art,  while  the  rest  is  valueless.  Even  those  who  believe  in  the 
single  authorship  of  the  poem  must  acknowledge  that  the  poet 
derived  the  substance  of  his  work  from  older  lays  (for  the  heroic 
legends  till  about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  existed  only  in  the 
form  of  lays  orally  handed  down),  and  that  the  internal  disparities 
are  explained  by  the  various  songs  made  use  of  by  the  author. 
But  a  careful  examination  of  these  inequalities  and  contradictions 
convinces  us  that  the  theory  of  single  authorship  is  untenable. 
The  author  of  the  Nibelungenlied  cannot  be  known.  Peihaps 
even  a  final  revision  of  the  poem  never  took  place,  and  instead  of 
speaking  of  a  poet  we  can  only  speak  of  the  man  who  first  had  the 
songs  written  down  in  a  book. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century  there  existed  a  song 
about  Kriemhild's  disloyalty  to  her  brothers.  Perhaps  it  related  in 
a  shorter  form  all  that  is  now  included  in  the  second  part  of  our 
poem.  The  desire  for  greater  epic  detail  may  have  led  to  the 
separate  treatment  of  single  incidents,  but  this  would  always  be 
done  with  reference  to  a  former  whole,  and  the  single  poems  could 
therefore  later  on  be  the  more  easily  re-united  as  episodes  in  a  whole. 
In  the  same  way  the  songs  of  the  first  part  may  have  grown  out  of 
an  older  shorter  ballad,  certain  incidents  of  which  invited  separate 


IO4  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  ^. 

treatment.  But  much  in  this  part  is  new  and  without  any 
older  source,  so  that  here  the  poet  was  guided  by  his  imagination 
only. 

The  first  song,  which  opens  with  Kriemhild's  foreboding  dreams, 
The  narrates  the  coming  of  Siegfried  to  Worms;  we  are 
First  Song.  toi(j  of  njs  father  King  Siegmund,  of  his  home  in 
Xanten,  of  his  beauty,  his  strength,  and  his  chivalrous  exploits.  He 
hears  of  Kriemhild's  beauty  and  coyness,  and  when  urged  to  seek 
a  wife,  he  declares  that  he  will  have  none  other  than  Kriemhild. 
The  opposition  of  his  parents,  their  fear  of  Kriemhild's  brothers, 
Gunther  and  Gernot  and  their  vassals,  especially  Hagen,  only  urge 
him  on.  He  thinks  at  first  of  winning  her  by  force,  yet  resolves  to 
ride  with  only  a  small  number  of  followers  to  the  land  of  the 
Burgundians.  Clad  in  magnificent  armour,  he  and  his  companions 
excite  general  attention  at  Worms.  But  Siegfried  ill  rewards  the 
friendly  reception  which  is  given  him ;  he  declares  his  intention  of 
acquiring  the  Burgundian  empire  by  force  of  arms,  yet  is  pacified 
on  being  offered  a  share  in  the  kingdom.  He  remains  with  the 
Burgundians,  and  the  song  closes  with  a  peaceful  joust  between 
Siegfried  and  his  hosts,  in  which  Siegfried  always  proves  superior. 
Throughout  this  song  every  word  and  action  of  Siegfried's  is 
instinct  with  the  boldness  and  impetuosity  of  youth.  Without 
elaborate  enumeration  of  his  exploits,  and  using  only  the  simplest 
means  of  description,  the  poet  succeeds  in  impressing  on  us  that 
Siegfried  is  a  true  hero.  Hagen,  who  is  represented  as  gloomy 
and  terrible,  is  made  prominent  from  the  first,  as  being  next 
in  importance  to  Siegfried.  Each  of  the  Burgundians  is  graphic- 
ally characterised,  and  untold  dramatic  force  is  thus  given  to 
their  interview  with  Siegfried.  It  would  take  more  words  to 
describe  the  beauties  of  this  poem  than  the  poet  used  to  accom- 
plish his  task.  His  power  of  depicting  character  and  developing 
incident  is  quite  remarkable.  But  the  original  intention  of  the  hero 
to  woo  and  win  Kriemhild  seems  to  be  quite  forgotten  by  the  end 
ot  the  poem.  The  author  of  this  song  probably  left  his  work 
uncompleted,  and  must  have  certainly  planned  a  very  different 
continuation  of  the  poem  from  that  which  we  now  find  in  the 
subsequent  songs. 


Ch.  v.]  The  Nibelungenlied.  105 

The  second   song   is  very  trivial.     The   poet   devotes  all   his 
energies  to  extolling  his  hero  Siegfried.     He  makes          The 
him  wage  a  successful  war  for  Gunther  against  the  Second  Song. 
Saxons  and  Danes,  and  take  both  of  the  hostile  kings  prisoners 
with  his  own  hand. 

After  this,  the  third  song  describes  a  feast,  at  which  Siegfried 
sees  Kriemhild  for  the  first  time  and  immediately  falls  The 
deeply  in  love  with  her.  There  is  no  mention  here  of  Third  Song. 
Kriemhild's  coyness.  On  the  contrary,  she  is  at  once  attracted  by 
the  young  knight,  who  for  his  part  does  not  dare  to  think  of 
winning  her,  but  confines  himself  to  exchanging  tender  glances 
with  her  and  secretly  pressing  her  hand.  The  freshness  and 
innocence  of  first  love  are  gracefully  and  tenderly  described,  but 
without  any  particular  originality. 

The  fourth  song,  on  the  contrary,  is  very  powerful.  It  tells  of  the 
wooing  of  Brunhild,  the  Amazon-Queen  of  Isenstein  The 
far  over  the  sea.  The  man  who  would  win  Brunhild's  Fourth  Song, 
affection  must  conquer  her  in  single  combat,  and  lose  his  head  if  he 
fails.  Siegfried  promises  to  win  her  for  Gunther,  on  condition 
that  Gunther  should  grant  him  Kriemhild's  hand  in  return.  This 
Gunther  promises  to  do.  Siegfried  takes  with  him  a  cloak  which 
renders  him  invisible,  the  '  Tarnkappe,'  of  which  he  had  stripped 
the  dwarf  Alberich,  and  thus  disguised  he  fights  with  Brunhild  in 
Gunther's  place,  and  conquers  her.  We  must  suppose  that  he  has 
seen  her  before,  for  he  alone  knows  the  way  to  her  country,  and 
she  at  once  greets  him  by  name  and  asks  him  what  he  wants. 
He  answers  that  he  is  Gunther's  vassal,  and  is  come  with  his  lord 
to  woo  her.  The  story  is  excellently  told,  with  strange,  almost 
naive  clearness  of  detail  as  regards  the  outward  incidents.  The 
poet  repeatedly  impresses  upon  his  hearers  the  fact  that  Siegfried 
made  use  of  secret  arts,  that  he  fought  and  not  Gunther,  and 
that  Brunhild  and  her  followers  believed  that  Gunther  was  the 
victor;  but  he  does  nothing  to  bring  out  the  characters,  the 
motives,  the  feelings  of  the  actors,  only  meaning  us  to  watch  with 
interest  how  Gunther  will  overcome  the  danger  into  which  he  has 
entered. 

A  weak  continuatiou  of  this  fourth  song  gives  a  detailed  but 


ic6  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.          [Ch.  v. 

uninteresting  account  of  the  return  of  Siegfried  as  a  messenger  to 
Worms  and  of  Brunhild's  reception  there,  and  at  the  end  just 
touches  on  the  marriage  of  Siegfried  and  Kriemhild. 

The  fifth  song  shows  us  the  two  couples  at  the  wedding-feast. 
The  Brunhild  weeps  because  Gunther's  sister  has  been 
Fifth  Song,  given  to  a  man  who  is  only  a  vassal,  and  the  King  com- 
forts her  by  promising  an  explanation  in  the  future.  But  Brunhild's 
dark  character  reveals  itself  still  further ;  Gunther  must  fight  again 
with  her,  and  again  Siegfried  in  his  '  Tarnkappe  '  must  aid  him  to 
overcome  Brunhild,  whose  ring  and  girdle  he  carries  off  and  gives 
to  Kriemhild.  The  poet  does  not  conceal  his  disapproval  of  this 
action,  and  remarks,  '  He  regretted  it  later.'  Taking  the  work  as 
a  whole,  it  makes  an  unfavourable  impression  that  Gunther  should 
three  times  in  succession  be  in  need  of  help,  and  unable  to  do 
anything  without  Siegfried  :  firstly,  in  the  Saxon  war,  secondly,  at 
the  wooing  of  Brunhild,  and  again  here  for  the  third  time. 

The  sixth  song,  treating  of  the  quarrel  between  the  two  Queens, 
The  brings  us  nearer  to  the  tragic  denouement.  We  learn 
Sixth  Song.  that  Siegfried  is  ruler  over  the  land  of  the  Nibelungen 
in  Norway,  and  is  the  possessor  of  vast  treasure.  He  and  his  wife 
accept  an  invitation  from  Gunther  and  Brunhild  to  come  to  Worms. 
One  evening,  when  the  two  Queens  are  sitting  together  and  watch- 
ing the  knightly  games,  the  quarrel  begins  with  Kriemhild's 
foolishly  exaggerated  praise  of  her  husband.  Brunhild  thereupon 
tries  to  play  the  sovereign  and  treat  her  sister-in-law  as  the  wife 
of  a  vassal.  The  latter  at  length  shows  Briinhild's  ring  and  girdle, 
and  Siegfried  incurs  suspicion  as  having  boasted  that  he  had  over- 
come this  tenible  woman.  BrUnhild  complains  to  her  husband, 
whereupon  Siegfried,  with  manly  honesly,  protests  his  innocence, 
blames  the  quarrelsome  speeches  of  the  women,  and  strictly  forbids 
Kriemhild  to  carry  on  the  quarrel.  The  narrative,  which  drags 
rather  at  the  beginning  of  this  song,  becomes  graduallymore  rapidand 
dramatic,  and  Siegfried's  concluding  speech  is  highly  characteristic. 

The  author  of  the  seventh  song  is  filled  with  moral  indignation 
The  against  Hagen,  who  in  the  previous  poem  had 

Seventh  already  shown  a  hankering  after  the  treasure  of  the 
Song.  Nibelungen.  Now  Brllnhild's  sorrow  moves  him  to  take 


Ch.  v.]  The  Nibelungenlied.  107 

vengeance  on  Siegfried.  Gunther  here  shows  much  moral  weak- 
ness in  being  so  easily  talked  over.  A  new  war  against  the 
Saxons  is  proclaimed,  and  for  the  fourth  time  Gunther  is  in 
need  of  assistance,  while  Siegfried  is  ready  to  help  and  eager 
for  battle.  Hagen  pays  a  farewell  visit  to  Kriemhild,  and  with 
striking  guilelessness  she  reveals  to  him  Siegfried's  secret,  in 
order  that  he  may  protect  him :  when  Siegfried  had  killed  the 
dragon  and  was  bathing  himself  in  its  blood,  a  lime-leaf  had  fallen 
between  his  shoulders,  and  there  alone  he  was  vulnerable.  Kriem- 
hild resolves,  by  Hagen's  advice,  to  mark  his  garment  in  the 
dangerous  place  with  a  small  silken  cross.  As  soon  as  Hagen  on 
the  following  morning  sees  the  cross,  he  sends  pretended  messen- 
gers of  peace  from  the  Saxon  King,  and  the  campaign  is  changed 
into  a  hunting-party.  The  evident  stratagem,  the  weakness  of  the 
King,  the  artfulness  of  his  counsellor,  the  unsuspecting  innocence 
of  the  young  couple,  are  somewhat  childishly  represented  by  the 
poet.  We  do  not  feel  ourselves  in  a  world  of  reality. 

But  in  the  following  song,  in  the  narrative  of  the  hunt  and  of 
Siegfried's  death,  German  popular  poetry  reaches  its  The 
highest  perfection.  Here  we  find  the  same  capacity  Eisbth  Song, 
for  indirect  characterisation  as  in  the  first  song,  which  this  one, 
however,  transcends  in  many  respects :  in  the  tragic  nature 
of  the  subject,  the  loftiness  of  the  style,  the  depth  of  the 
conception,  the  greater  breadth  of  the  narrative.  We  are  again 
attracted  by  the  impetuous  character  of  Siegfried,  who  appears 
full  of  life  and  boyish  spirits.  Being  very  thirsty  he  exclaims  : 
'They  ought  to  have  brought  me  mules  laden  with  mead  and 
spiced  wine,  or  else  to  have  transferred  the  meeting-place  nearer 
to  the  Rhine.'  Hagen  knows  of  a  spring  close  at  hand,  and 
challenges  Siegfried  to  race  him  thither,  and  Siegfried  willingly 
agrees.  With  naive  self-confidence  he  runs  in  armour,  while 
Hagen  and  Gunther  run  in  their  shirts.  Still  he  comes  in  first, 
but  waits  for  Gunther  to  drink  before  him.  Then  while  Siegfried 
is  bending  down  to  drink,  Hagen  takes  away  his  weapons  and 
hurls  his  own  spear  at  his  back  through  the  silken  cross.  Siegfried 
has  only  retained  his  shield,  and  with  it  he  throws  the  murderer  to 
the  ground;  but  then  he  turns  pale,  and  sinks  down  exhausted 


io8  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

among  the  flowers.  He  reproaches  Hagen  and  Gunther,  reminds 
them  of  his  services  and  of  his  loyalty,  and  then  turns  his  dying 
thoughts  to  Kriemhild,  to  his  son  and  his  father.  And  says  the 
poet,  '  The  flowers  all  around  were  drenched  with  blood  where  he 
wrestled  with  death.'  They  lay  the  body  on  a  shield,  and  as  soon 
as  it  is  dark,  they  take  it  across  the  Rhine. 

The  joyous  opening  and  the  tragic  close  of  this  song  produce 
a  most  powerful  effect  on  the  reader,  and  show  the  very  highest 
poetic  art.  The  poet  not  only  gives  a  clear  idea  of  the  events,  but 
also  of  the  locality  in  which  they  took  place.  It  is  not  only  Sieg- 
fried whom  he  clearly  characterises,  but  also  Gunther  and  Hagen, 
and  he  manages  throughout  to  maintain  an  attitude  of  im- 
partiality. 

The  ninth  song,  Siegfried's  funeral,  forms  a  worthy  continuation 
The  of  the  eighth,  and  is  deeply  affecting.  Hagen  is  not 
Ninth  Song,  content  with  the  mere  deed  of  horror,  but  carries  his 
hatred  so  far  as  to  choose  the  most  painful  way  of  communicating 
to  Kriemhild  the  death  of  her  husband,  and  have  the  corpse 
laid  by  night  at  rrr  door.  By  this  device  the  poet  enhances  our 
pity  for  the  heroine  in  her  overwhelming  affliction.  The  first 
touching  scene  in  this  song  is  where  Kriemhild,  going  to  early 
mass  in  the  grey  dawn,  sinks  down  in  despair  over  Siegfried's 
body  on  the  threshold.  The  second  is  where  Siegmund,  the  old 
father,  is  awakened  from  sleep  with  the  dreadful  news.  Yet 
a  third  equally  touching  is  where  Kriemhild  causes  the  coffin, 
which  had  been  already  shut,  to  be  opened  again,  and  raises 
with  her  white  hands  the  beautiful  head  of  the  dead  and  kisses 
it  once  more.  Kriemhild's  character  is  drawn  with  great  skill, 
and,  despite  her  love  and  intense  grief,  she  is  represented  as  so 
far  mistress  of  herself  that  she  is  able  to  infer  from  the  undented 
shield  that  her  darling  has  been  murdered ;  forthwith,  instead 
of  giving  herself  up  to  sorrow,  she  meditates  active  revenge. 
More  prudent  than  the  men,  she  restrains  Siegmund  and  his  ad- 
herents from  hasty  steps  which,  in  view  of  the  enemy's  superior 
strength,  would  be  utterly  futile.  In  a  word,  instead  of  the  coy 
girl,  or  the  impressionable  maiden,  or  the  foolishly  boasting 
woman,  we  have  Here  for  the  first  time  the  Kriemhild  of  the 


Ch.  v.]  The  Nibelungenlied.  109 

second  part,  the  Kriemhild  of  revenge,  energetic,  resolute,  and 
circumspect. 

In  the  tenth  song,  which  is  one  of  the  poorest,  she  appears 
quite  different,  weak  and  imprudent.  How  un-  The 
natural  it  is  that  she  should  neglect  her  child  in  Tenth  Song, 
order  to  remain  in  Worms,  and  lament  over  the  dead  with 
her  youngest  brother  Giselher.  The  Nibelungen  treasure  is 
brought  to  Worms,  and  Hagen  sinks  it  in  the  Rhine.  The  poet 
of  this  song  seems  again  inspired  with  hatred  of  Hagen,  but  he 
also  excites  in  his  readers  feelings  of  dislike  and  almost  of  contempt 
for  Kriemhild  and  her  brothers. 

The  songs  of  the  second  part  differ  less  from  each  other  in 
point  of  artibtic  merit  than  those  of  the  first  part.  The 
Throughout  there  are  more  characters  in  action  at  Second  Part. 
the  same  time.  The  poets  describe  in  great  detail  the  court  of  the 
Burgundian  princes  and  that  of  Etzel,  King  of  the  Huns,  scenes  of 
richer  and  fuller  life  than  have  yet  been  depicted.  In  the  first 
part  it  often  seems  as  if  the  world  were  empty,  save  for  a  few 
heroes  for  whose  benefit  it  was  created.  In  the  second  part  we 
are  terribly  impressed  by  the  fact  that  the  hatred  and  revenge 
of  one  woman  may  lead  to  the  destruction  of  thousands. 

The  author  of  the  eleventh  song,  '  Etzel's  Wooing  of  Kriemhild,' 
has  represented  the  Queen  as  a  resigned  mourning         The 
widow,  and  we  watch  the  idea  of  revenge  only  gradu-     Eleventh 
ally  arising  in  her  mind.  Song. 

The  twelfth  song,  '  Etzel  and  Kriemhild's  Marriage,'  gives  us 
a  grand  picture  of  the  throng  of  princes  and  nations  at         Tne 
Etzel's  court,  and  it  is  particularly  mentioned  that  there      Twelfth 
was   peaceable   intercourse    between   Christians   and        Song, 
heathens.     The  poet  seems  here  to  notice  with  patriotic  pride  that, 
at  her  marriage  feast  at  Vienna,  Kriemhild  was    surrounded  by 
riches  and  power  such  as  she  had  never  enjoyed  at  Siegfried's  side. 

In  the  thirteenth  song  Kriemhild's  brothers  are  invited  to  the 
court  of  Etzel,  to  the  country  of  the  Huns.     The  poet         ip^e 
does   not   conceal   Kriemhild's   evil   intentions,  and    Thirteenth 
contrasts  her  hidden  malice  with  Etzel's  honest  plea-        Song, 
sure  at  finding  his  invitation  accepted.     But  still,  it  is  the  outward 


no  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

course  of  events  which  interests  the  poet  most,  and  he  thinks  a 
great  deal  of  courtly  speech,  which  makes  men  outwardly  similar 
without  destroying  the  deeper  differences  of  character. 

The  fourteenth  song  differs  in  character  from  the  other  songs  of 
ipkg  the  second  part,  which  are  generally  confined  to  a 
Fourteenth  purely  human  sphere,  without  trenching  on  the  super- 
Song,  natural.  Dreams,  forebodings,  prophecies,  and  my- 
thological beings  surround  the  grim  central  figure,  Hagen.  There 
are  many  omens  of  the  approaching  tragedy,  and  Hagen's 
undaunted  courage,  which  resolves  to  struggle  against  it,  stands 
out  in  strong  relief.  The  song  describes  in  full  but  two  scenes : 
the  morning  of  the  departure  from  Worms,  and  the  crossing  of  the 
swollen  Danube.  Hagen,  we  learn,  would  have  opposed  the 
journey  had  not  Gernot  reproached  him  with  cowardice ;  then  he 
at  once  consented.  We  see  a  wild  energy  in  every  word  and 
action  of  Hagen's.  He  knows  the  way,  he  rides  at  the  head  of  the 
party,  and  is  a  comfort  and  help  to  the  Nibelungen,  as  the 
Burgundians  are  here  for  the  first  time  called.  Some  mermaids 
whom  he  sees  bathing  in  the  Danube  warn  him  again  of  the  fate 
which  he  and  his  companions  are  riding  to  meet.  '  Return  while 
it  is  time,'  they  cry,  '  for  he  who  rides  into  Etzel's  land  must  die.' 
But  this  does  not  make  Hagen  waver  even  for  a  moment.  The 
warning  must  not  come  from  him,  since  Gernot  accused  him 
of  cowardice.  The  mermaids  direct  him  to  a  ferry,  and  Hagen, 
after  having  killed  the  ferryman  for  his  hesitation,  rows  the  boat  up 
stream  to  where  the  Burgundians  are  waiting,  and  himself  ferries 
the  whole  host  across  the  river.  Then,  just  as  they  are  about 
to  march,  he  calls  to  them  all,  both  knights  and  squires,  '  A 
direful  woe  I  announce  to  you ;  we  shall  never  return  home  to  the 
Burgundian  laud.' 

The  character  of  this  man  Hagen  is  grandly  drawn,  and  he 
excites  our  sympathy  by  his  undaunted  courage  and  resolution,  and 
by  his  loyalty  as  a  vassal.  But  there  is  something  weird  about 
his  supernatural  prowess,  his  readiness  to  kill  and  to  lie,  and  his 
striving  to  hide  all  evil  omens  until  the  Rubicon  is  passed,  when 
with  fiendish  pleasure  he  mercilessly  prophesies  sure  destruction 
to  all.  Yet  in  the  scene  with  the  mermaids  the  poet  ventures  to 


Ch.  v.]  The  Nibelungenlied.  1 1 1 

represent  him  as  subject  to  human  weakness,  easily  deceived, 
and  outwitted;  this  mingling  of  opposite  traits  shows  great 
skill  on  the  part  of  the  author,  and  his  poem,  though  it  moves 
rapidly  and  is  generally  drawn  in  broad  lines,  is  yet  full  of 
life-like  touches. 

The  gloominess  of  this  song  is  relieved  by  the  bright  sunshine  of 
the  following  one,  which  describes  the  sojourn  of  the         Tlie 
Burgundians  in  Pochlarn  with  the  Margrave  Rudiger.     Fifteenth 
The  poet  tells  us  in  an  easy  and  graceful  style  of  the        Sons. 
wealth  and  festivities  which  there  surround  them.    The  first  greeting 
kiss  of  Hagen  inspires  the  young  Markgrafin  with  terror.      The 
minstrel  Volker  displays  his  convivial  talents.     Riidiger's  daughter 
is  betrothed  to  Giselher,  and  at  parting  there  is  a  general  giving 
of  presents,  and  soon  the  first  warning  comes  through  Dietrich 
von  Bern,  who  rides  to  meet  the  Burgundians. 

Two  different  songs  have  been  preserved  to  us  narrating  the 
reception  of  the  Burgundians  by  Kriemhild.  Both  make 
particular  mention  of  the  heroic  friendship  between  sixteenth 
Hagen  and  Volker,  who  inspire  the  Huns  with  great  awe.  and 
The  first  of  these  songs  is  rather  rude ;  its  author  takes  Seventeenth 
part  against  Kriemhild,  and  makes  his  heroes  bandy 
rough  words  with  one  another.  But  he  also  gives  us  one  touching 
scene :  the  Burgundians  are  betaking  themselves  with  heavy  hearts 
to  rest,  when  Hagen  comforts  them  and  Volker  takes  his  fiddle 
and  makes  their  hearts  glad  with  his  loud  melody,  then  playing 
more  softly  he  lulls  them  to  sleep.  After  this  he  again  seizes  his 
shield  and  stands  on  guard  with  Hagen  outside,  and  his  helmet 
shines  through  the  night  and  frightens  away  the  stealthily 
approaching  Huns.  The  author  of  the  second  song  must  have 
been  acquainted  with  the  preceding  one,  for  he  is  offended  by  the 
feeling  displayed  therein  against  Kriemhild,  and  by  the  bad  man- 
ners of  Hagen  and  Volker,  nor  does  he  care  like  his  rival  poet  to 
caricature  the  cowardice  of  the  Huns.  He  makes  the  sequence 
of  events  clearer,  and  diminishes  the  individual  guilt  of  his 
characters  by  representing  their  actions  as  forced  upon  them  by 
stress  of  circumstances  or  by  a  conflict  of  noble  motives.  At  the 
same  time  the  mainspring  of  the  approaching  tragedy  is  made 


112  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.          [Ch.  v. 

to  lie  in  the  fated  chain  of  events  through  which  the  past  avenges 
itself. 

The  last  three  songs  deal  with  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  the 

The  last  beginning  and  end  of  the  massacre;  they  describe 
three  Songs,  thronged  conflicts  in  which  single  heroes  distinguish 
themselves  :  for  instance  in  the  eighteenth  song  Dankwart,  Hagen's 
brother,  and  in  the  nineteenth  Iring  of  Denmark. 

But    the    twentieth    song,    'der   Nibelungen    Noth'    (i.  e.   the 

The         last    straits   and    destruction    of    the    Burgundians), 

Twentieth    surpasses   all  the  others,    being  the   most   powerful 

Song-        portraiture    of   action    and    character    produced   by 

Middle    High-German   heroic   poetry.     The   catastrophe   of  the 

tragedy  is  worked  out  with  true  poetic  feeling,  the  tragic  horror 

of  the  whole  being  redeemed   by  incidents  of  noble  heroism  or 

true  pathos.     The  poet  differs  from  many  of  his  fellow- workers 

in  attributing  to  these  old  heroes  some  gentler  sentiments,  such 

as  a  longing  for  peace.     Throughout  he  hints  at  means  of  escape, 

by  which  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  the  enemy  might  have  been 

avoided.     But  in  vain !     The   passions   of  men   are  always  too 

strong,  and  draw  them  on  to  destruction. 

The  song  opens  on  a  midsummer  evening,  when  the  Bur- 
gundians issue  from  the  building  in  which  they  are  imprisoned 
and  demand  reconciliation  and  peace.  But  Etzel  refuses,  for  they 
have  slain  his  child  and  many  of  his  relations,  and  the  wrong  which 
they  have  done  must  be  avenged.  The  heroes  then  request 
a  fight  in  open  field,  but  Kriemhild  dissuades  the  Hunnish  knights 
from  granting  this  request,  and  demands  instead  the  surrender  of 
Hagen.  The  kings,  however,  are  true  to  their  vassal.  The  Bur- 
gundians are  then  driven  into  the  house,  which  is  set  on  fire  all 
round,  and  tortured  by  the  heat  they  drink  blood  by  Hagen's 
advice.  The  following  morning  there  is  more  fighting,  and  1200 
Huns  are  slain.  Riidiger  comes  and  sees  the  misery;  Etzel  and 
Kriemhild  require  him  to  take  part  in  the  fight,  which,  after  a  hard 
inward  struggle,  he  resolves  to  do.  Giselher  thinks  that  Riidiger  is 
bringing  peace,  and  breathes  more  freely.  Riidiger  then  speaks  to 
Gunther,  Gernot,  and  Giselher  in  words  full  of  sympathy  and 
sorrow.  Just  as  he  is  going  into  the  fight,  Hagen  calls  to  him  and 


Ch.  v.]  The  Nibelungenlied.  113 

begs  for  his  shield,  which  Riidiger  gives  him,  touching  even  his 
grim  nature  by  such  an  act  of  kindness.  Gernot  and  Riidiger 
fall  by  each  other's  hands,  the  latter  being  killed  with  his  own 
sword  which  he  had  given  to  King  Gernot  in  Pochlarn. 

The  news  of  Riidiger's  death  is  told  to  King  Dietrich,  who  had 
held  aloof  from  the  fight.  He  sends  old  Hildebrand,  escorted  by  the 
whole  host  of  the  Goths,  to  learn  how  it  happened.  Sharp  words 
arise  between  Volker  and  the  wild  Goth  warrior  Wolfhart ;  from 
words  they  come  to  blows,  and  all  the  heroes  who  meet  there,  ex- 
cept Gunther,  Hagen,  and  Hildebrand,  fall  in  the  strife ;  Hildebrand 
flees  before  Hagen's  sword-strokes  and  returns  to  his  master  with 
the  dreadful  tidings.  The  poet  gives  a  touch  of  powerful  tragic 
irony  in  making  the  king  of  the  Goths  lament  for  Riidiger  while 
Hildebrand  stands  before  him  with  news  of  a  still  greater  woe. 
On  learning  of  the  loss  of  all  his  followers  Dietrich  breaks  out  into 
bilter  lamentations  over  his  fate  and  over  each  of  the  fallen.  He 
then  sets  out  to  subdue  Hagen  and  Gunther,  whom  he  vanquishes 
and  leads  in  chains  before  Kriemhild,  after  exacting  from  the  latter 
a  promise  to  spare  them.  She  demands  that  Hagen  should  give 
up  the  stolen  Nibelungen-treasure,  and  when  he  replies  that  he 
has  sworn  not  to  give  it  up  as  long  as  one  of  his  masters  still  lives, 
she  has  Gunther  slain,  and  brings  his  head  to  Hagen.  'It  has 
come  to  pass  as  I  thought,'  says  he;  'no  one  now  knows  where  the 
treasure  is  save  God  and  myself,  and  from  thee,  thou  she-devil,  it 
shall  for  ever  be  hidden.'  Then,  remembering  Siegfried,  Kriemhild 
draws  his  sword,  which  Hagen  has  on,  out  of  the  sheath,  swings  it 
high  with  both  hands,  and  strikes  off  the  warrior's  head — to  the 
horror  of  Etzel  and  the  anger  of  Hildebrand,  who  springs  forward 
and  kills  her.  The  king's  feast  had  ended  in  woe,  as  joy  always 
at  last  turns  to  sorrow  (Ah  ie  diu  Hebe  leide  ze  aller  jungisle  gtf). 

The  author  of  this  last  song  has,  with  great  art,  gathered 
together  once  more  all  the  elements  of  the  tragedy.  The  poem 
is  full  of  allusions  to  the  preceding  events,  and  recapitulates  the 
leading  incidents  of  the  whole  legend.  In  the  composition  of  his 
work  the  poet  has  strictly  adhered  to  a  preconceived  plan,  ac- 
cording to  which  a  large  part  of  the  story  is  told  indirectly  in 
messages  and  narrations,  and  this  is  specially  the  case  where  the 


ii4  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [ch.  v. 

deeds  to  be  related  are  so  extraordinary  that  they  would  naturally 
create  a  strong  impression  and  lead  to  exaggeration.  Nor  is  it 
unintentional  on  the  part  of  the  poet  that  his  narrative  towards 
its  close  becomes  meagre  and  sparing  of  detail,  for  he  probably 
reckoned  on  having  aroused  in  his  readers  so  lively  an  interest  in 
his  main  plot  that  they  would  not  care  to  dwell  on  all  the  minor 
circumstances. 

The  characters  in  this  twentieth  song  stand  out  each  with  a 
well-marked  individuality,  which  finds  its'  appropriate  setting  and 
natural  outward  expression  in  the  events  related.  Gunther  is 
The  shown  in  a  more  favourable  light  than  in  the  other 
characters  in  songs.  He  appears  as  a  true  king,  resolute,  kind,  and 
the  twentieth  dignified.  His  brother  Gernot  is  more  hasty,  and  his 
ong'  love  of  fighting  is  not  restrained  by  his  sense  of  dignity. 
There  is  something  touching  in  the  bright  and  hopeful  character 
of  the  third  brother,  the  youthful  Giselher,  while  in  contrast  with 
him  we  have  the  realist  Volker  who  destroys  the  youth's  illusions. 
Hagen,  Volker's  companion  in  arms,  does  not  appear  half  so  bar- 
barous and  unfeeling  as  in  the  former  songs.  It  is  only  after  Volker's 
death,  and  when  he  is  brought  before  Kriemhild,  that  he  becomes 
the  'grim'  Hagen  and  fully  reveals  his  unbending  and  terrible 
nature.  The  poet  felt  rightly  that  Etzel  must  be  pre-eminent  over 
the  rest  of  the  Huns,  but  he  does  not  give  him  this  pre-eminence 
throughout.  As  for  Kriemhild,  he  does  not  reveal  much  of 
her  inmost  character ;  he  neither  describes  her  with  abhorrence 
nor  excuses  her,  but  represents  her  simply  as  was  necessary 
for  his  purpose,  as  the  instrument  of  woe.  He  lingers  with 
sympathy,  however,  over  the  character  of  the  Margrave  Riidiger, 
who  shows  his  generous  nature  even  on  his  way  to  death.  In  the 
poet's  delineation  of  the  Margrave  we  can  trace  the  influence  of 
the  clerical  poetry,  with  its  absorption  in  the  inner  life  and  in 
questions  of  guilt  and  innocence ;  thanks  to  that  influence  the  poet 
was  able  to  conceive  and  create  the  character  of  a  hero,  on  whom 
is  laid  a  heavy  burden  of  conflicting  duties.  On  the  one  hand  are 
his  friends  to  whom  he  had  shown  hospitality,  on  the  other,  his  king 
who -had  made  him  rich  and  his  queen  to  whom  he  had  sworn 
implicit  obedience  in  Worms.  The  struggle  of  conscience  is  fully 


Ch.  v.]  The  Nibelungenlied.  115 

described,  yet  without  any  direct  psychological  analysis.  In  his 
distress  the  hero  turns  to  God  for  counsel  and  guidance,  and 
most  probably  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  poet  that  God  would 
wish  a  man's  duty  as  a  vassal  to  take  precedence  of  all  his  other 
duties.  Among  the  Goths  many  names  are  mentioned,  but  only 
three  characters  are  drawn  with  much  individuality :  the  impetuous 
Wolfhart,  the  old  and  somewhat  enfeebled  Hildebrand,  who  in 
a  most  important  crisis  by  no  means  shows  the  prudence  of  age, 
and  the  splendid  figure  of  Dietrich  von  Bern,  noble  and  temperate, 
with  that  moral  strength  which  those  win  who  bear  nobly  some 
great  and  enduring  sorrow.  His  grief  for  Riidiger  becomes  of 
fatal  import  to  himself;  while  he  is  lamenting,  the  foolish  step  is 
taken,  and  his  heroes  go  with  Hildebrand  to  their  destruction.  His 
lament  over  the  fallen  shows  us  the  whole  nature  of  the  man : 
'And  are  all  my  followers  dead?  then  God  has  forgotten  me, 
poor  Dietrich.'  The  banished  man  feels  the  whole  extent  of  the 
misfortune  which  pursues  him.  His  fate  is  summed  up  in  these 
words :  '  I  was  a  powerful,  great,  and  rich  king.'  He  knows  not 
who  will  now  help  him  to  win  back  his  land,  and  regrets  that 
sorrow  has  not  power  to  kill. 

The  poet  gives  us  no  hope  that  Dietrich's  fate  may  be 
mitigated,  and  that  happiness  may  again  spring  up  somewhere 
under  his  powerful  rule.  He  says  particularly  that  he  knows 
nothing  more  but  that  the  fallen  were  lamented.  No  brighter 
future  is  in  store  for  Etzel,  Dietrich,  or  Hildebrand  as  they  stand 
by  the  grave  of  all  their  hopes. 

DIETRICH  VON  BERN. 

Another  poem  is  generally  attached  to  the  Nibelungenlied, 
being  connected  with  it  by  its  subject.  It  is  called  '  The  Lament,' 

and  consists  chiefly  of  an  enumeration  of  the  fallen 

'Die  Klage.' 
at   their  interment,  and   of  lamentations   over  their 

past  glory.  But  it  contains  one  beautiful  and  impressive  scene  :  the 
seven  remaining  squires  of  Riidiger  bring  his  war-horse  and  robe 
of  battle  to  Pochlarn,  and  when  interrogated  by  the  women,  they  try 
to  conceal  the  truth,  as  they  have  been  straitly  charged  to  do ;  but 

i  a 


u6  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

the  women  have  been  already  warned  by  bad  dreams,  and  now 
their  presentiment  of  evil  becomes  stronger,  their  enquiries  more 
searching,  till  one  of  the  squires  can  no  longer  restrain  his  tears; 
then  all  the  messengers  begin  to  weep  and  the  terrible  foreboding 
is  turned  to  certainty. 

The  same  poem  tells  how  Dietrich  took  leave  of  Etzel  and  set 
out  with  old  Hildebrand  for  his  home.  But  we  do  not  hear  what 
awaits  him  there,  or  what  he  intends  to  do,  and  it  is  only  the 

Saxon  Saxon  legends  which  afford  us  a  satisfactory  explana- 
legends  of  tion,  and  give  us  at  length  a  picture  of  peace  after  the 
Dietrich,  long-continued  din  and  tumult  of  battle.  According 
to  the  Saxon  legends,  as  we  know  them  through  the  Norwegian 
Thidrekssaga  (cf.  p.  95);  Dietrich  has  to  flee  before  Ermenrich  (who 
in  the  legends  had  long  taken  the  place  of  the  historical  Odoacer)  and 
takes  refuge  with  the  Huns.  He  is  again  defeated  by  Ermenrich 
at  the  battle  of  Ravenna.  Hadubrand,  Hildebrand's  son,  grows  up 
at  Ermenrich's  court,  and  becomes  ruler  of  Verona.  As  soon 
as  Hildebrand  and  Dietrich  return  to  their  country,  they  hear  that 
Ermenrich  is  dead  and  that  the  traitor  Sibich,  who  had  incited  him 
to  all  his  misdeeds,  is  his  successor.  Hildebrand  fights  with  his  own 
son  Hadubrand,  whom  he  recognises ;  but  he  hides  his  name  from 
Hadubrand  and  conquers  him,  without  killing  him.  The  gentler 
feelings  of  this  later  age  shrank  from  the  tragical  conclusion  of  the 
older  song,  and  turned  the  deep  moral  conflict  in  the  father's  soul, 
which  was  the  grandest  feature  of  the  old  Hildebrandslied,  into 
a  mere  hero's  freak  with  a  moral  purpose.  In  this  later  version 
of  the  story  the  old  man  merely  wishes  to  show  the  young  one  that 
he  is  still  the  stronger,  and  thus  gives  a  wholesome  lesson  to  the 
arrogance  of  youth. 

Later  on  Hadubrand  leads  his  whole  host  to  join  the  returning 
King  Dietrich ;  Sibich  is  defeated  and  Dietrich  is  crowned  in 
Rome,  where  he  reigned  long,  and  performed  many  new  deeds 
of  valour.  At  length  one  day,  in  his  zeal  for  hunting,  he  mounted 
a  black  horse,  which  bore  him  away  so  fast  that  no  one  could  follow 
him,  and  since  that  time  nothing  more  has  been  heard  of  him. 

There  are  many  High-German  poems  extant  which  glorify 
D.etrich  and  give  us  incidents  out  of  his  early  life.  They 


Ch.  v.]  Dietrich  von  Bern.  117 

turn  him  into  a  fashionable  hero  in  the  style  of  the  chivalrous 
romances,  and   attribute  to  him   marvellous   adven-        ,_.  . 

liign- 

tures  with  dwarfs,  giants,  and  dragons.     They  make      German 
heathens  oppose  him,  whom  he  afterwards  converts  poems  about 
to  Christianity.    They  either  say  that  he  rode  out  from        ietrich- 
Verona  and  found  his  enemies  in  the  mountains  of  Tyrol,  or  they 
adhere  to  the  historical  legends  and  describe  his  flight  to  the  Huns 
and  his  conflicts  with  Ermenrlch.     But  we  cannot  gain  from  these 
poems  a  connected  sketch  of  Dietrich's  fortunes,  and  their  value  as 
poetry  is  small,  with  the  exception  of  the  account  of  the  battle  of 
Ravenna  and  the  song  of  Albhart's  death. 

In  the  former,  side  by  side  with  a  wild  chaos  of  combats,  often 
very  coarsely  described,  we  have  the  touching  episode  The  so 
of  Etzel's  sons,  who  accompany  Dietrich  and  Riidiger  of  the 
to  the  war  and  are  killed  by  Wittich.  With  them  Battle  of 
falls  their  companion-in-arms,  Diether,  King  Dietrich's 
young  brother.  Dietrich  on  hearing  the  news  is  transported  with 
wild  grief,  and  follows  up  the  murderer  in  mad  pursuit  till  he  disap- 
pears in  the  waves  of  the  sea,  where  a  mermaid  protects  him.  After 
Ravenna  has  been  taken,  Riidiger  rides  back  with  the  evil  tidings 
to  the  land  of  the  Huns.  Queen  Helche,  the  mother  of  the 
murdered  princes,  is  going  into  the  garden  to  enjoy  the  beautiful 
flowers,  when  she  sees  two  horses  with  empty  blood-stained  saddles 
galloping  up  to  the  palace ;  they  seem  to  her  like  those  on 
which  her  sons  rode  to  Verona.  Riidiger  can  no  more  hide  the 
terrible  truth,  and  a  touching  scene  ensues  when  the  queen  in 
her  transports  of  grief  recalls  the  picture  of  her  sons,  as  they  were 
wont  to  wake  her  in  the  morning  and  to  fondle  her  with  their  white 
hands.  '  That  is  all  over  now,'  she  exclaims,  and  imprecates 
a  curse  on  Dietrich;  but  she  is  more  reconciled  on  hearing  how 
he  mourned  for  her  sons,  and  that  he  had  himself  lost  a  brother. 
The  closing  scene  is  sublime  and  touching ;  Dietrich  tells  the  news 
to  Etzel,  and  the  latter,  conquering  his  sorrow,  folds  him  in  his  arms 
and  declares  him  free  from  all  blame. 

The  tone  of  the  second  poem,  '  Albhart's  death/  is  equally 
mournful.  Albhart,  Wolfhart's  brother,  a  young  and  bold  hero 
is  keeping  an  outpost  alone  ;  he  overthrows  a  troop  of  eighty 


u8  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.          [ch.  \\ 

men,   and   even    forces   the   tried  warrior  Wittich    to  yield,   but 
The  Song  of  generously  spares  the  life  of  his  conquered  and  de- 

Albhart's  fenceless  foe.  Then  Heime  comes  to  Wittich's  aid, 
death.  anfj  ^  Wittich's  suggestion,  they  both,  contrary  to  all 
knightly  honour,  fall  on  the  brave  youth  and  kill  him.  This 
poem  has  a  direct  moral  purpose  and  enforces  the  principles  of 
honour  and  loyalty.  At  the  same  time,  for  subtle  contrast  of 
characters  and  reflection  of  the  same  in  action,  as  well  as  for 
dignified  and  detailed  narrative,  the  poem  will  bear  comparison 
with  the  better  parts  of  the  Nibelungen-Epic. 

Throughout  all  these  songs  Dietrich  appears  as  the  most  humane 
Character     °f  heroes,  just  as  in  the  account  of  Kriemhild's  revenge 
of  Dietrich,   he  abstains  from  fighting  until  incited  to  it  by  his  great 
losses.     He  is  never  eager  for  combat,  but  needs  the  strongest 
moral  impulses  to  rouse  him  to  fight.     When  once  aroused,  how- 
ever, he  shows  great  valour. 

The  same  characteristics  are  attributed  to  Dietrich  in  two  poems 
'Biterolf'    entit^ecl  '  Biterolf '  and  the  '  Rosengarten/  which  de- 

and  the       scribe  his  fights  with  Siegfried.     In  both  these  works 

•Rosen-  tne  characters  of  the  legend  are  evidently  taken  as 
typical  of  the  countries  to  which  they  belong.  Both 
describe  a  tournament  which  takes  place  at  Worms,  in  which  the 
Rhenish  heroes,  Gunther,  Hagen,  Siegfried  and  others,  measure 
their  strength  against  the  heroes  of  South-East  Germany — Hilde- 
brand,  Wolfhart,  Dietrich,  and  others.  Both  songs  favour  the  latter 
group  of  heroes,  and  claim  that  the  countries  once  ruled  over 
by  Theodoric  the  Great  are  equal  or  superior  to  the  Rhenish 
provinces  in  the  profession  of  arms.  Perhaps  the  authors  sought 
to  console  themselves  in  poetry  for  the  fact  that  in  reality  it  was 
quite  the  opposite ;  for  warlike  and  peaceful  culture  really  spread 
from  the  Rhine  to  South-East  Germany,  and  thus  the  South-East 
German  might  occasionally  be  made  painfully  conscious  of  his 
inferiority.  This  local  jealousy  gave  birth  to  the  story  of  Siegfried 
having  once  been  vanquished  in  single  combat  by  Dietrich  von 
Bern.  In  'Biterolf'  the  struggle  is  still  left  undecided,  and  the 
poem  only  brings  together  a  great  number  of  heroes  and  exhibits 
rich  pictures  of  chivalrous  life.  But  the  'Rosengarten,'  a  work 


Ch.  v.]  Dietrich  von  Bern.  1 19 

which  attained  great  popularity  after  the  second  half  of  the  thirteenth 
century  and  was  freely  altered  and  revised,  repre-  The  '  Rosen- 
sents  King  Dietrich  as  completely  victorious.  The  garten.' 
poem  aims  at  a  popular,  realistic,  and  comic  style  of  narrative,  and 
returns  to  the  sensationalism  which,  though  long  abandoned  by  the 
more  refined  poets,  had  never  ceased  to  be  in  vogue  with  the  lower 
class  of  minstrels.  The  poet  takes  special  pleasure  in  the  some- 
what coarse  character  of  Hildebrand's  brother,  the  monk  Ilsan, 
who  is  brought  out  of  the  monastery  to  take  part  in  Dietrich's 
procession  to  Kriemhild's  '  rose-garden'  at  Worms.  A  very  late 
tradition  says  that  Dietrich  killed  Siegfried  in  the  fight  in  the 
Rosengarten  at  Worms,  and  that  Kriemhild's  revenge  was  directed 
against  Dietrich's  house. 

In  the   mist   of  such  errors   and  vague  traditions  the   heroic 
legends   gradually  disappeared   during    the    fifteenth 
century   from   the   field   of   literature.     But   as   late 
as   the   sixteenth   century  three  songs  were  printed       heroic 

which  show  that  the  tradition  of  certain  important      Jegends, 

.  ,  ,  ....  ,     j  15th  century, 

incidents  in  the  national  heroic  poetry  had  not  even 

then  entirely  died  out.     These  three  songs  are :  the  Siegfriedslied, 
the  later  Hildebrandslied,  and  the  song  of  Ermenrich's  death. 

The   Siegfriedslied,   or  the   '  Hiirnen    Seifried,'   tells  us  more 
about    the    hero's    youth    than   we    learn   from    the         The 
Nibelungenlied.     It  tells  how  the  maiden  Kriemhild     'Hurnen 
was  carried  off  by  a  dragon,  but  was  rescued  by  '  the     Seifried.' 
proud  youth  Seifried,'  and  contains  allusions  to  important"  points  in 
the  Nibelungen  legend,  to  the  treasure,  to  Siegfried's  death  by 
Hagen's  hand  and  to  the  great  slaughter  in  the  land  of  the  Huns. 
In  1557  Hans  Sachs  made  a  tragedy  out  of  this  story,  and  the 
same  song  was  also  the  nucleus  of  a  popular  prose  romance, 
while  in  one  local  tradition  Seifried  lived  on  under  the  name  of 
Saufritz. 

The  later   Hildebrandslied   follows  in  its   general   outline  the 
Saxort  form  of  the  story  mentioned  at  the  beginning    The .  later 
of  this  section.     Here  too   Hildebrand  knows  with      Hiide- 
whom  he  is  fighting,  but  seems  to  look  upon  single  brandslied.' 
combat  as  a  peculiarly  agreeable  way  of  meeting  his  son  again,  and 


I2O  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [ch.  v. 

only  reveals  himself  after  he  has  vanquished  him.  The  poem  ends 
with  a  cheerful  picture  of  family-life,  showing  us  father,  mother,  and 
son  at  supper. 

The  song  of  Ermenrich's  death  gives  the  legend  in  a  much- 
'Ermenrich's  obscured  form.  Dietrich  himself,  at  the  head  of 
Tod.'  eleven  companions,  appears  before  King  Ermenrich 
and  questions  him  about  the  new  gallows  which  he  has  had  built ; 
he  then  suddenly  draws  '  a  sword  of  gold  so  red '  and  strikes  off 
the  tyrant's  head.  Thus  Dietrich  or  Theodoric,  the  great  king 
of  the  Goths,  appears  for  the  last  time  before  the  German  people 
in  the  peculiar  character  of  a  Brutus.  For  the  space  of  a  thousand 
years  or  more  after  his  death  his  praises  had  never  ceased  to  be 
sung  in  German  poetry.  But  the  contrast  which  is  dwelt  on  in 
this  poem  between  rude  tyranny  and  mild  government,  the  former 
being  represented  by  Ermanarich,  the  latter  by  Theodoric  the 
Great,  must  have  found  expression  in  early  Gothic  songs.  We 
shall  notice  the  same  contrast  later  on  among  the  Franks. 

ORTNIT  AND  WOLFDIETRICH. 

The  German  hero-legends  possess  a  certain  element  of  reality, 
in  so  far  as  they  are  always  connected  with  fixed  localities ;  but 
the  scene  of  the  legends  is  often  shifted  from  a  desire  to  give  them 
more  local  colouring,  and  this  often  gave  rise  to  great  confusion. 
Thus  the  Lower  Saxon  traditions  have  transferred  Attila's  home 
and  the  death-struggle  of  the  Nibelungen  to  Soest.  'Bern'  is 
generally  understood  to  mean  Verona,  but  sometimes  Bonn.  The 
most  curious  geographical  changes  of  this  sort  are  found  in  the 
legend  of  '  Ortnit  and  Wolfdietrich.' 

The  heathen  Vandals,  as  we  know,  worshipped  a  pair  of  divine 

brothers,  who  (according  to  a  clever  conjecture  of  Karl 

variants  of    Mu'lenn°ff)   lived   on   in    songs   after   the   downfall 

the  legend    of  the  national  religion  as  two  Vandal  kings,  named 

of  Ortnit  and  the    Hartunge.     These   brothers   are   united   by  the 

trich         tenderest  affection,  and  when  one  of  them,  Hartnit 

or   Ortnit,  is   slain,    like   the    Greek    Kaslor,    by  an 

enemy's  hand,  the  survivor  avenges  him,  like  Pollux,  and  marries 


Cb.  v.]  Ortnit  and  Wolfdietrich.  lil 

his  widow.  In  the  middle  ages  the  Vandals  were  confused  with 
the  Wends  and  Eastern  Slavs,  and  thus  it  happened  that  the  Lower 
Saxons,  who  were  well  acquainted  with  Russia  through  their 
commerce,  transferred  the  home  of  these  Hartunge  to  Nogarden 
(Novgorod).  The  South-Germans,  on  the  contrary,  being  less 
acquainted  with  those  northern  lands,  supposed  Nogarden  to  be 
the  Italian  Garda,  on  the  lake  of  that  name;  thus  in  the  South- 
German  versions  of  the  legend  Ortnit  became  a  ruler  over  Lom- 
bardy  and  Italy  and  an  emperor  of  Rome.  But  the  second 
Hartung,  Ortnit's  brother,  is  called  in  South-German  poems 
'  Wolfdietrich ; '  and  through  this  name  the  old  Vandal  Myth  was 
blended  with  one  of  the  most  modern  additions  to  heroic  song, 
namely,  with  an  historical  legend,  drawn  directly  from  Historical 
the  history  of  the  royal  house  of  the  Merovingians,  elements  in 
and  based  on  the  adventures  of  Theodoric  and  Theo-  the  lesend- 
debert,  the  son  and  grandson  of  Clovis.  These  two  princes  seem 
to  have  lived  on  in  poetry  as  '  Hugdietrich'  and  '  Wolfdietrich.' 
Hugdietrich,  like  the  Merovingian  Theodoric,  shrinks  from  no 
crime,  while  Wolfdietrich,  like  the  Merovingian  Theodebert,  is 
a  pattern  of  virtue  and  an  object  of  special  providence.  After 
the  death  of  his  father,  his  elder  brothers  wish  to  drive  him  from 
the  throne ;  but  he  is  supported  by  his  loyal  vassals,  and  ends  by 
being  as  victorious  over  his  brothers  as  was  the  historical  Theo- 
debert over  his  grasping  uncles.  Hugdietrich  is  in  this  legend 
represented  as  a  heathen,  and  Wolfdietrich  as  a  Christian,  who 
is  protected  in  all  dangers  by  his  baptismal  robe.  Tyranny  and 
justice,  faithlessness  and  loyalty  are  contrasted;  a  cruel  and 
criminal  race  gives  place  to  a  milder  and  better  one,  and  Chris- 
tianity is  represented  as  bound  up  with  moral  goodness.  The 
Merovingian  prince  Theodebert's  distress  after  his  father's  death 
takes  in  this  legend  the  form  of  a  long  banishment  from  home ; 
and  he  is  probably  called  '  Wolf '  because  in  Old  German  law 
this  word  designated  a  banished  man.  In  later  times,  when  the 
significance  of  the  name  had  been  forgotten,  its  use  was  accounted 
for  by  a  story  of  how  the  wolves  had  spared  Wolfdietrich  when 
he  was  a  child,  or  how  they  had  carried  him  away  to  their  cave. 
The  legends  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  represent  him 


122  Middle  High- German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

as  coming  during  his  exile  to  Garcia,  avenging  the  death  of  King 
Ortnit  and  marrying  his  widow.  But  to  complete  the  geographical 
confusion  Hugdietrich  and  Wolfdietrich  are  made  out  to  be 
Greeks,  reigning  over  Greece  and  living  at  Constantinople.  Thus 
the  legend  raised  the  Merovingian  princes  to  the  Byzantine  throne. 
The  Middle  High-German  poems  in  which  these  widely  circulated 
legends  were  embodied  did  not  ever  attain  the  rank  of  classics. 
The  Epic  of  Ortnit,  like  the  Crusading  poems  of  the  twelfth 
Epic  of  century,  supplemented  a  tradition  which  had  become 
Ortnit.  very  meagre.  It  must  have  been  composed  before 
the  Crusade  of  Frederick  II,  about  the  year  1225,  but  it  seems 
rather  to  warn  against  than  to  encourage  the  expedition.  For 
Ortnit  is  also  made  to  undertake  a  Crusade,  but  his  struggle  with 
the  heathen  involves  terrible  sacrifices.  Ortnit  wins  a  beautiful 
heathen  maiden,  but  her  father  remains  hostile  to  him  and  has 
a  dragon  brought  to  Trient,  which  devastates  the  land  and  even 
devours  the  Emperor  himself. 

At  least  four  different  versions  of  the  story  of  Wolfdietrich  were 
Story  of     written  during  the  thirteenth  century.    His  adventures 
'"Wolfdie-    during  his  banishment  were  constantly  being  added 
trich.        to^  ^g  effects  being  rendered  more  striking  and  a 
considerably  larger  space  assigned  to  supernatural  and  marvellous 
elements.     It  is  to  be  regretted  that  of  the  poets  who  treated  this 
subject  the   best  left  his  work  incomplete.     He,  more  than  the 
rest,  grasps  the  leading  types  of  character  which  figure  in  the 
legend.     It  is  true  that,  instead  of  putting  Hugdietrich's  unscru- 
pulosity  in   the   right  light,  he  lays   all   the   blame   on    his   evil 
counsellor  Saben ;  but  he  has  done  his  best  to  give  a  worthy  ren- 
dering of  the  devotion  existing  between  Wolfdietrich  and  his  tutor 
Berchtung. 

The  following  is  a  short  outline  of  the  story  as  this  poet  tells  it. 
Berchtung  has  been  commanded  by  Hugdietrich  to  kill  the  boy 
Wolfdietrich ;  he  is  only  persuaded  to  undertake  the  task  by  the 
strongest  threats,  and  seeks  by  force  to  stifle  the  pity  in  his  breast. 
The  child  has  been  taken  away  from  the  side  of  its  sleeping  mother 
in  the  cold  night,  and  calls  out  shivering  in  Berchtung's  arms  : 
'  Mother,  cover  me  up  ;'  to  whxh  the  old  man  answers  with  forced 


ch.  v.]  Ortnit  and  W olfdietrich.  123 

harshness :  '  What  do  I  care  if  you  shiver/  In  the  morning,  when 
the  sun  breaks  through  the  clouds,  the  child  forgets  the  cold  and 
plays  unsuspiciously  with  the  rings  on  the  armour  of  the  man  who 
is  to  murder  him.  Berchtung  cannot  reconcile  himself  to  the 
murderous  deed  and  returns  his  sword  to  its  sheath.  The  child 
plays  in  the  meadows  alone,  yet  fearlessly,  the  whole  day  till  night 
comes  on,  while  Berchtung  hides  in  the  bushes  and  watches  it.  By 
moonlight  wolves  appear,  but  instead  of  hurting  the  child  they  lie 
down  around  it  and  allow  it  to  play  with  them.  Then  the  old 
man  perceives  that  Divine  Providence  is  watching  over  the  child, 
and  resolves  to  spare  it.  He  afterwards  suffers  imprisonment  for 
its  sake,  for  the  same  king  who  commanded  him  to  slay  it  now 
accuses  him  of  the  deed,  and  stands  abashed  when  his  own  guilt 
comes  to  light.  The  boy's  deliverer  now  becomes  his  tutor,  and 
many  years  later,  after  the  old  king's  death,  he  and  his  sixteen  sons 
fight  for  their  beloved  master  Wolfdietrich  against  his  elder  brother 
and  the  treacherous  Saben  who  wish  to  keep  him  out  of  his 
inheritance.  After  the  battle  only  ten  of  Berchtung's  sixteen  sons 
remain  alive,  but  still  his  loyalty  is  not  shaken.  These  ten  with 
their  father  now  form  Wolfdietrich's  whole  army.  He  is  afterwards 
besieged  in  their  castle,  is  obliged  to  leave  them,  and  goes  into 
exile ;  still  he  prays  for  their  safety  in  distress,  and  in  happiness 
considers  it  his  most  sacred  duty  to  help  them ;  and  with  the  ful- 
filment of  this  duty  the  narrative  of  his  deeds  terminates. 

The  relation  between  Wolfdietrich  and  Berchtung  is  to  some 
extent  a  repetition  of  that  between  Dietrich  von  Bern  and  the  old 
Hildebrand.  Theodebert,  the  historical  original  of  Wolfdietrich, 
did  in  fact  show  himself  a  faithful  friend  and  would  not  carry  out 
the  murderous  command  of  his  father,  but  himself  warned  the  in- 
tended victim,  who  was  his  godchild,  of  his  impending  fate;  he 
persuaded  him  to  flee,  and  when  he  returned  after  the  death  of 
the  cruel  king,  received  him  with  open  arms,  gave  him  rich  presents 
and  re-instated  him  in  his  possessions.  In  the  legend  prince  and 
vassal  have,  as  it  were,  changed  their  parts;  still,  the  kind  of 
loyalty  represented  in  the  poem  was  not  unknown  in  the  epoch  in 
which  the  legend  arose.  In  this  legend,  as  in  that  of  the  Nibelun- 
gen,  loyalty  is  the  inspiring  principle  of  the  drama. 


124  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 


HlLDE   AND   GUDRUN. 

The  Epic  of  Gudrun  is  again  a  song  in  praise  of  loyalty,  and,  like 
Epic  of  the  legend  of  Wolfdietrich,  it  stretches  over  two  genera- 
Oudrun.  tions,  and  tells  us  the  story  of  the  loves  of  both  mother 
and  daughter.  Here  too  we  notice,  though  not  strongly  accentuated, 
a  certain  change  of  manners  between  the  two  generations.  The 
principles  of  education  have  changed :  where  the  mother  trembled 
the  daughter  can  act  freely;  where  the  former  had  to  submit  the  latter 
follows  the  prompting  of  her  own  heart.  In  the  first  story  fear 
and  disloyalty  are  produced  by  sternness ;  in  the  second  love  and 
loyalty  are  called  forth  by  kindness.  But  the  same  heathens  fight 
for  the  daughter,  who  helped  to  woo  and  win  the  mother. 
Geographically  and  historically  the  scene  is  the  same  in  both 
cases ;  the  epoch  of  the  Norman  sea-faring  expeditions  seems 
to  be  that  which  the  poet  had  in  his  mind,  as  is  evinced 
by  the  incidents  of  the  poem.  For  instance,  invasions  always 
come  from  the  sea,  and  castles  and  towns  on  the  coast  are  sud- 
denly surprised  and  taken.  Pursuers  and  pursued  often  meet  on 
inlands. 

A  Moorish  king,  Siegfried,  who  is  introduced  in  an  episode  of 
Historical    ^"s  Poem  as  fightmg   m  Friesland,  reminds  us  of  a 
element      Norman  leader  of  the  same  name  who  conducted  the 
in  the       great  sjege  of  parjs  in  the  years  885  and  886,  and 
lost  his  life  in  an  attack  on  the  Frisians  in  the  autumn 
of  887.     In  the  time  of  the  Crusades  the  heathen  Normans  were 
often  confused  with  the  Saracens  and  Moors.     But  the  real  story 
of  the  poem  is  in  some  respects  older,  in  others  later  than  this. 
The  story  of  'Gudrun'  is  most  probably  based  on  an  old  myth 
Mythical     reflecting   the  continuous  conflict   between   day  and 
element.      night;    but  the  myth  is  here  made  entirely  human 
its  interest   and  all  supernatural   elements  are   discarded.     It 
becomes  one  of  the  many  legends,  all  so  similar  to  each  other, 
narrating  the  abduction  of  a  woman.     A  girl's  parents  refuse  her 
suitors ;    then  follow  abduction,  pursuit,  fighting,  peace,  and  mar- 
riage.    And  here  again,  as  in  the  romance  of  Rudlieb,  the  story 


Ch.  v.]  Hilde  and  Gudrun.  125 

was  made  to  embrace  the  lives  not  only  of  the  parents  but  of 
the  children.  Thus  the  fair  Hilde,  who  was  the  centre  of  the 
old  mythical  story,  has  a  daughter  Gudrun,  whose  youth  repeats 
many  of  the  chief  incidents  already  related  about  her  mother. 

The  story  attained  its  fullest  development  in  the  Netherlands, 
probably  in  the  eleventh  century;  it  was  then  con-      various 
nected  with  Normandy,  and  so  brought  into  relation  with   versions  of 
contemporary  history  and  interests.     It  became  a  lead-     tlie  story- 
ing  epic  theme,  and  gained  in  popularity  in  proportion  as  love  grew 
to  be  the  exclusive  topic  of  poetry.     The  story  was  known  in  Bavaria 
before  the  year  noo,  and  was  treated  in  a  celebrated  poem  not 
preserved  to  us,  but  referred  to  by  the  clerical  poets  of  the  twelfth 
century.     About  the  year  1210  a  poet  of  remarkable  Bestv  rsi 
talent  made  it  his  theme.     His  work,  like  the  songs  of     made  in 
the  Nibelungen  epic,  was  afterwards  much  added  to      Bavaria, 
by  other  poets,  and  we  have  it  in  this  enlarged  form 
in  a  late  manuscript.     Many  critics  have  busied  themselves  in  re- 
moving these  excrescences,  and  amongst  them  Karl  Miillenhoff 
takes  the  foremost  rank. 

The  author  of  'Gudrun'  has  treated  his  subject  in  two  songs, the 
first  of  which  narrates  the  wooing  of  Hilde,  while  the      Division 
second,  which  is  somewhat  longer,  tells  the  history      into  two 
of  Gudrun.     It  was  traditional  to  divide  the  story  into        songs, 
two  halves,  nor  did  the  poet  venture  to  depart  from  the  tradition,  but 
actually  took  advantage  of  the  perplexing  repetition  of  incidents  to 
produce  the  most  charming  poetic  effects,  by  frequently  bringing 
the  two   parts  into  direct  contrast  with  each  other.     The  song 
about   Hilde  is  a   prologue,  the  song   of  Gudrun's  distress  and 
delivery   being    the    kernel    of    the    poem.     The    former   leaves 
us   in   a   cheerful    mood;   the   latter    becomes    more    and   more 
gloomy,  and  in  fact  almost  tragic.     A  fearful  crime  receives  its 
punishment,  but  we  are  not  allowed  to  see  the  happiness  which  lies 
beyond. 

The  wild  king  Hagen  of  Ireland  has  all  the  suitors  of  his 
daughter  Hilde  slain.  King  Hettel  of  Denmark  nevertheless 
resolves  to  sue  for  her  hand.  He  sends  out  for  this  purpose  three 
of  his  vassals,  Wate,  Frute,  and  Horand,  who  succeed  in  concealing 


126  Middle  High- German  Popular  Epics.         [ch.  v. 

from  Hilde's  father  the  real  purpose  of  their  mission,  and  having 
First  song,  gamed  the  consent  of  the  maiden  carry  her  off  by 
'  story  of  stratagem.  On  reaching  Denmark,  Hettel  receives 
Hilde.  them  on  the  shore;  but  the  ships  of  the  pursuers 
are  already  seen  approaching,  and  their  arrival  suggests  to  the  poet 
some  grand  and  picturesque  scenes,  such  as  we  shall  frequently 
meet  with  in  the  course  of  his  narrative.  Hagen  springs  from  his 
ship,  and  after  wading  to  the  shore  through  a  shower  of  arrows, 
engages  the  terrible  Wate  in  unequal  combat  till  he  is  rescued  from 
his  peril  by  Hettel  at  Hilde's  entreaty.  After  this  Hettel,  desiring 
a  cessation  of  arms,  takes  off  his  helmet ;  the  fighting  hosts  greet 
this  sign  of  peace  with  loud  acclamations,  whereupon  the  wild 
Irish  king  no  longer  resists.  Finally,  Hilde,  led  by  Horand  and 
Frute,  timidly  approaches  her  father,  conscious  of  her  wrong-doing, 
and  we  see  how  love  at  length  triumphs  in  the  old  man's  heart  and 
disposes  him  to  kindness.  He  leads  away  his  daughter  from  the 
battle-field,  and  at  the  end  of  the  song  we  see  him  sitting  at  home 
again  with  her  mother  and  declaring  himself  quite  satisfied  with 
Hilde's  lot.  This  succession  of  exciting  incidents,  graphically 
described,  is  compressed  into  about  sixty  lines. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  second  song,  Hettel  and  Hilde  haughtily 
Second  song,  refuse  the  suit  of  Hartmut  of  Normandy  for  the 
'  story  of  hand  of  their  daughter  Gudrun,  on  the  ground  that 
Oudrun.  ^e  jg  not  j^  equaj  m  birth.  Neither  will  they  re- 
ceive Herwig  von  Seeland  as  a  son-in-law,  and,  enraged  at 
this  insult,  Herwig  declares  war.  His  knightly  courage  in  the 
battle  wins  the  heart  of  Gudrun,  who  is  watching  the  fight; 
she  separates  the  fighters  and  is  betrothed  to  Herwig.  Soon 
afterwards,  while  Hettel  is  helping  his  future  son-in-law  against 
Siegfried,  the  Moorish  king,  Gudrun  is  carried  off  by  Hartmut  and 
his  father  Ludwig.  Hettel  and  Herwig  hear  of  this  in  time  to  pur- 
sue and  overtake  them  ;  but  Hettel  falls  by  Ludwig's  hand  in  the 
battle  on  the  Wdlpensand,  and  the  robbers  escape  unperceived  in 
the  night,  taking  the  women  with  them.  For  seven  years  Gudrun 
has  to  endure  the  greatest  humiliation  and  cruelty  at  the  hands  of 
Hartmut's  mother  Gerlind,  who  is  enraged  at  Gudrun's  refusal  to 
marry  her  son,  and  makes  her  perform  the  most  menial  tasks. . 


oh.  v.]  Hilde  and  Gudrun.  127 

Gudrun  submits,  but  in  a  defiant  manner,  and  constantly  broods  on 
revenge.  At  length  the  hour  of  deliverance  comes.  Her  brother 
Ortwin,  her  betrothed  Herwig,  and  the  old  heroes  Wate,  Frute,  and 
Horand  approach  with  a  large  army;  the  enemies  meet  in  a  fear- 
ful battle,  which  the  poet  describes  in  the  most  graphic  way. 
Ludwig  falls,  and  his  son  Hartmut  is  just  yielding  under  the  strokes 
of  the  infuriated  Wate,  when  his  sister  Ortrun,  who  has  shown 
kindness  to  Gudrun  in  her  banishment,  entreats  her  to  save  her 
brother's  life.  Gudrun's  cry  from  the  battlements  reaches  Herwig 
in  the  midst  of  the  fight,  and  at  his  own  peril  he  averts  the  mortal 
blow  from  Hartmut.  Hartmut  is  taken  prisoner,  and  Herwig  and 
Gudrun  are  at  length  united. 

The  key-note  of  the  Nibelungenlied,  as  we  have  already  noticed, 
is  that  joy  is  turned  into  sorrow ;  but  in  Gudrun  it  is  character  of 
the  interweaving  of  joy  and  sorrow,  the  conflict  of  the  poem. 
emotions  which  seems  to  have  specially  attracted  the  poet.  Three 
times  in  the  poem  the  warlike  passion  of  the  men  is  restrained 
at  the  entreaty  of  the  women,  whose  moral  feeling  they  feel 
bound  to  respect.  Three  times  a  woman  interferes  as  peace- 
maker; first,  Hilde  sends  out  Hettel  to  protect  her  father  from 
Wate;  secondly,  Gudrun  separates  Hettel  and  Herwig;  thirdly, 
Gudrun  sends  Herwig  to  protect  Hartmut  from  Wate.  These 
three  incidents  all  form  important  turning-points  in  the  narra- 
tive ;  and  in  the  second  case,  where  Herwig's  bravery  excites 
Gudrun's  admiration  and  love,  though  he  is  an  enemy,  the  poet 
expressly  mentions  the  conflict  of  emotions  in  her  breast;  the 
new  feeling,  he  says,  was  both  '  pleasant  and  painful  to  her '  (lied 
und  kid].  And  again,  in  their  first  secret  interview  after  their 
long  separation,  when  he  finds  her  in  the  deepest  humiliation 
and  begins  to  hope  that  he  may  set  her  free,  then,  in  the 
midst  of  their  kisses  and  embraces  and  their  talk  of  what 
they  have  experienced  and  suffered,  they  feel  glad  and  sorry  (lieb 
und  kid). 

It  is  only  by  such  slight  allusions  as  these  that  the  poet  enters 
the  realm  of  feelings  at  all,  and  he  never  attempts  to  describe  them 
in  detail.  By  means  of  the  simplest  words  he  produces  the  most 
masterly  effects.  His  character-drawing  is  far  removed  from  that 


1 28  Middle  High-  German  Popular  Epics,          [ch.  v. 

exaggerated  idealization  which  gains  the  applause  of  the  multitude; 
he  was  too  great  an  artist  to  condescend  to  such  means.  His 
Character  of  Gudrun,  far  from  being  the  perfect  type  of  feminine 

Gudrun.  gentleness,  is  rather  hard.  Even  from  her  first  appear- 
ance in  the  battle  between  Herwig  and  Hettel,  we  are  led  to  feel 
that  hers  is  an  unbending  character.  She  declares  her  feelings  with- 
out any  maidenly  bashfulness  and  succeeds  in  carrying  out  her  will. 
With  passionate  and  irresistible  entreaties  she  persuades  her  father 
to  help  her  lover  against  the  Moorish  king ;  and  when  her  father's 
absence  brings  misfortune  upon  her,  she  shows  great  fortitude,  shed- 
ding no  tear,  and  making  no  lament.  Her  demeanour  towards 
Ludwig,  towards  Hartmut  and  his  mother  Gerlind,  her  tormentor,  is 
always  cold  and  distant,  and  she  never  loses  her  royal  dignity.  She 
fulfils  every  command  in  a  defiant  manner,  and  all  the  while  dreams 
of  revenge. 

In  a  highly  poetic  scene  the  author  describes  how,  while  washing 
clothes  on  the  sea-shore,  she  hears  the  consoling  news  of  the  ap- 
proach of  her  friends.  In  this  scene  alone  the  poet  admits  the 
supernatural,  and  uses  the  device  of  a  talking  bird,  like  the  raven 
in  the  epic  of  'St.  Oswald'  (cf.  p.  87).  He  has  succeeded  in 
imparting  to  Gudrun's  repeated  questions  about  her  beloved 
ones  and  the  bird's  answers  a  peculiar  melancholy  and  expectant 
tone,  full  of  lyric  tenderness  and  reminding  one  of  later  popular 
ballads. 

The  meeting  with  Herwig  and  Ortwin  the  next  morning  on  the 
shore  turns  the  hope  of  speedy  delivery  into  cejtainty.  And  then 
the  whole  force  of  Gudrun's  passion  breaks  loose  in  a  manner 
which  the  poet  renders  almost  offensive.  He  seems  determined  to 
be  true  here  even  at  the  expense  of  beauty.  Gudrun  at  once 
throws  down  the  clothes  which  she  was  to  wash,  and  lets  them  be 
carried  away  by  the  tide.  She  meets  the  threats  of  Gerlind  with 
counter- threats,  and  declares  herself  ready  to  become  Hartmut's 
bride.  She  assumes  all  the  rights  of  the  future  queen,  and  excites 
the  courtiers  to  emulate  each  other  in  her  service.  She  has  food 
and  drink  brought  to  her,  and  then  having  shut  herself  up  in  her 
bed-chamber  with  the  other  women  who  had  been  carried  away 
from  home  with  her,  she  drinks  with  them,  laughs  at  their  sadness 


Ch.  v.]  Hilde  and  Gudrun.  129 

and  reveals  to  them  the  prospect  o,  deliverance  on  the  morrow. 
And  when  in  the  thick  of  the  fight  next  day  the  kmtl-hearted 
Ortrun  prays  Gudrun  to  help  her  brother,  it  is  only  after  passionate 
and  heart-rending  appeals  that  Gudrun  yields  to  her  request.  And 
though  she  protects  Ortrun,  yet,  when  her  humbled  enemy  Gerlind 
entreats  for  mercy,  Gudrun  only  gives  her  mocking  words,  and 
stands  by  while  Wate,  inexorable  as  fate,  puts  an  effectual  end  to 
her  supplications.  It  is  in  the  midst  of  slaughter  that  Gudrun 
finds  her  lover  again.  Compared  with  an  ideal  character  such  as 
Berchtung  in  '  Wolfdietrich,'  Gudrun  produces  the  impression  of  a 
powerful  portrait.  Her  character  may  owe  some  of  its  coarser 
elements  to  the  time  and  the  locality  in  which  it  first  arose.  And 
this  thirteenth-century  poet,  being  himself  a  manly  and  vigorous 
nature  in  an  almost  effeminate  age,  was  probably  for  this  very 
reason  attracted  by  the  legend,  and  only  toned  it  down  so  far  that 
the  mingling  of  tender  and  powerful  elements  might  produce  the 
effect  of  a  study  from  real  life. 

The  other  characters,  too,  are  not  me.>ely  black  or  white.  Even 
Gerlind  is  not  a  pure  she-devil ;  her  cruelty  to  Gudrun  springs 
from  pride  in  her  house,  which  Gudrun  despises,  and  other 
from  love  to  her  son,  whom  Gudrun  scorns.  Her  characters 
daughter  Ortrun,  on  the  contrary,  is  kind  and  loveable,  in  the  P°em- 
and  hardly  ever  appears  on  the  scene  without  tears  or  entreaties. 
Hildeburg,  Gudrun's  maid,  who  voluntarily  shares  Gudrun's  deepest 
humiliation,  retains  her  fear  of  Gerlind  till  the  last,  and  thus  forms 
a  contrast  to  her  mistress.  In  these  secondary  characters  feminine 
weakness  prevails.  Even  Hilde  is  not  free  from  it ;  she  fears  her 
father,  and  his  tyranny  leads  her  into  cunning  and  deception. 
Her  haughty  family  pride,  which  leads  her  to  reject  all  her 
daughter's  suitors  just  as  her  father  had  done  in  her  own  case, 
brings  about  the  catastrophe.  In  the  defence  of  the  castle  against 
Ludwig  and  Hartmut  she  shows  greater  wisdom  than  the  soldiers 
around  her.  In  the  midst  of  her  sorrow  at  the  death  of  Hettel 
her  mind  is  occupied  with  the  thought  of  revenge,  which  she 
carries  out  deliberately  at  the  right  time.  Hilde's  strength  of 
will  is  inherited  by  her  daughter  Gudrun,  and  it  enables  her  to 
endure  her  misery  with  fortitude. 

K 


130  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

Hagen  is  an  uncouth  barbarian,  clumsy,  naively  conceited,  but 
good-natured  at  bottom,  and  the  poet  has  drawn  his  character  with 
much  humour.  The  Danes  turn  him  to  ridicule,  although  they 
stand  in  awe  of  him ;  he  is  powerless  against  intelligence,  for  his 
only  weapon  is  brute  strength.  The  Danish  heroes  who  come 
to  ask  Hilde  in  marriage  for  their  King  Hettel,  have  each  their 
special  sphere  of  activity  :  Wate  works  by  force,  Frute  by  cunning, 
Horand  by  art.  Wate  is  the  wild,  desperate  warrior  whose  very 
appearance  inspires  terror.  Frute,  who  on  the  expedition  to 
Ireland  is  disguised  as  a  merchant,  otherwise  appears  but  little 
in  the  poem.  Horand  is  the  German  Orpheus,  whose  singing 
makes  all  creatures  listen  to  him. 

Hettel  seems  to  have  been  drawn  as  a  contrast  to  Hagen,  and 
corresponds  to  the  idea  of  royal  dignity  such  as  we  find  it  in  the 
Nibelungenlied.  He  does  not  wish  to  excite  fear  but  affection  in 
his  subjects.  He  allows  his  daughter  great  freedom,  and  grants 
her  wishes.  His  son  Ortwin  is  an  attractive  picture  of  a  youth 
full  of  noble  affection  for  his  parents  and  his  sister. 

As  we  have  contrasted  Hagen  and  Hettel,  the  tyrannical  and 
the  considerate  father,  so  we  may  also  contrast  Hartmut  and 
Herwig,  the  despised  and  the  favoured  lover.  The  latter  always 
acts  according  to  his  own  judgment,  and  works  energetically  and 
perseveringly  towards  the  end  which  he  has  in  view.  He  intends 
to  gain  Gudrun  by  force,  and  thereby  he  wins  her  heart.  He 
fulfils  her  ideal  of  what  a  knight  should  look  like,  and  his  character 
corresponds  to  his  outward  appearance.  But  he  too  is  not 
the  conventional  ideal  of  the  invincible  hero.  He  cannot  over- 
throw the  Moorish  King  without  assistance,  and  in  the  final  battle 
we  are  told  that  Ludwig  pressed  him  so  hard  that  his  vassals  had 
to  hew  a  way  out  for  him.  Then  he  looks  up  at  once  to  the 
battlements  of  the  castle  to  note  whether  Gudrun  has  seen  his 
distress,  for  if  she  has,  he  thinks  she  may  reproach  him  with 
it  when  they  are  married.  There  is  a  delicious  na'ivete  in  this 
little  matrimonial  scene  which  the  poet  brings  before  our  eyes 
in  the  midst  of  the  tumult  of  battle.  He  is  not  afraid  of 
injuring  his  hero  in  our  esteem  by  this  humorous  sally. 

In  con'rast  with  Herwig,  Hartmut  is  weak  and  easily  led  by  his 


Ch.  v.]  Hi  life  and  Gudrttn.  131 

mother  Gerlind.  It  is  she  who  advises  him  to  woo  Gudrun,  and  l.e 
follows  her,  in  opposition  to  the  wiser  counsel  of  his  experienced 
father.  He  does  not  approve  of  the  cruel  indignities  by  which 
Gerlind  tries  to  force  Gudrun  into  loving  him,  but  he  is  too  weak 
to  offer  any  resistance.  There  is  something  ignoble  in  his  whole 
conduct  towards  Gudrun  ;  he  attacks  her  father's  country  when  it  is 
undefended,  he  threatens  to  use  force  against  Gudrun,  and  yet  ex- 
pects affection  from  the  woman  whom  he  has  thus  threatened.  Yet 
both  Hartmut  and  his  father  are  by  no  means  drawn  by  the  poet 
in  a  wholly  unfavourable  light.  In  Normandy,  in  his  own  castle, 
Hartmut  approaches  the  captive  Gudrun  with  tender  words  only, 
and  treats  her  with  wise  forbearance,  so  that  some  pity  is  aroused 
in  us  for  this  constantly  rejected  lover.  And  in  the  final  battle 
Hartmut  excites  our  admiration :  he  rides  at  the  head  of  his 
troop,  resplendent  as  an  emperor,  and  performs  deeds  of  great 
valour.  The  two  rival  lovers  do  not  encounter  each  other;  on 
the  contrary,  Herwig  becomes  Hartmut's  deliverer.  This  incident, 
which  so  greatly  raises  our  opinion  of  Gudrun's  lover,  is  re- 
lated in  the  simplest  manner,  without  any  endeavour  to  produce 
a  sensation. 

King  Ludwig  of  Normandy  not  only  shows  extraordinary 
bravery,  but  also  great  wisdom.  He  kills  Hettel,  and  Herwig  has 
to  be  rescued  from  his  fury  by  his  vassals.  He  foresees  all  the  evil 
which  will  result  from  Hartmut's  wooing  of  Gudrun.  He  employs 
stratagem  where  it  would  be  most  useful.  He  is  rather  rough  and 
sometimes  most  insulting  in  his  language ;  but  he  too  lets  his  wife 
have  her  own  way,  so  that  the  ambitious  Gerlind  appears  through- 
out as  the  moving  force,  which  brings  sorrow  and  distress  on 
Hettel's  house  and  on  her  own. 

The  poet  has  formed  a  clear  idea  in  his  own  mind  of  all  these 
characters,  and  he  succeeds  in  bringing  them  vividly    The>  poet's 
before  his  readers;    but  he  very  rarely  allows  us  a        style, 
glance   into    their   feelings.      Herwig  alone   has  a  short   mono- 
logue.    Dialogue   is  often  used,  but  always  in  order  to   tell   the 
reader  things  which  it  is  necessary  for  him  to  know,  but  which  the 
poet  does  not  wish  to  narrate  directly.     He  also  leaves  much  to 
the  reader's  imagination  ;  his  narrative  demands  full  attention,  yet, 

K    2 


132  Middle  High- German  Popular  Epics.         [Ch.  v. 

in  spite  of  his  brevity,  he  is  never  obscure.  He  does  not  neglect 
to  describe  personal  appearance,  but  he  is  careful  not  to  weary 
us  by  detailing  the  attire  of  each  of  his  characters.  It  is  only  in 
certain  important  moments,  when  the  excited  imagination  longs 
to  see  everything  in  detail,  that  he  describes  appearance  and  cloth- 
ing, thus  completing  the  illusion  and  making  us  feel  as  though 
transported  into  the  very  midst  of  the  events.  He  never  indulges 
in  long  descriptions  of  external  nature,  but  he  sometimes  pro- 
duces beautiful  effects  in  a  very  few  words.  For  instance,  he  tells 
us  that  Wate,  when  meditating  an  attack,  communed  with  the 
clear  night,  the  air  being  pure  and  the  moon  shining  full.  So, 
too,  he  mentions  that  the  morning-star  had  risen  high  when  in  the 
dawn  one  of  Gudrun's  maidens  saw  from  the  window  helmets 
and  shields  glittering,  and  soon  the  whole  landscape  was  shining 
with  them. 

The  poem  of  '  Gudrun '  has  been  too  often  called  the  German 

.         Odyssey,  and   this   name   has   aroused  expectations 

of  'Gudrun'  which  are  not  satisfied  by  reading  the  epic.     The 

with  the      subject   indeed   afforded   opportunity  for   something 

Ddyssey.      <  marme  and   insular'  (Meer-  und  Inselhaftes]  in  its 

treatment,  to  use  Goethe's  expression.     But  this  South-German 

poet  was  not  well  acquainted  with  the  sea,  and  so  perhaps  did  well 

in  not  entering  more  fully  into  the  subject  of  sea-voyages  and 

storms.     Again,  the  fabulous  element  of  the  Odyssey  would  here 

have  seemed  entirely  out  of  place.    Thirdly,  in  '  Gudrun,'  far  more 

than  in  the  Odyssey,  it  is  the  hostilities  of  nations  which  absorb 

the  interest  of  the  reader ;  the  fate  of  the  chief  characters  is  bound 

up  with  the  issue  of  battles  and  sieges. 

The  many-sidedness  of  the  author  has  imparted  great  variety  to 

Special       t^ie  P°em-     It  is  tne  most  important  production  in 

merits  of     that  class  of  Middle  High-German  poetry  which  was 

the  poem.    basec|  on  native  tradition ;  and  it  is  the  only  one  in 

which  a  great  poet  set  himself  to  treat  the  whole  of  an  epic  subject 

from  beginning  to  end  in  one  poem,  while  at  the  same  time  paying 

careful  attention  to  details.      The  poets  of  the  Nibelungenlied, 

being  under  the  influence  of  the  separate  songs  in  which  alone  the 

subject  was  known  to  them,  only  dealt  with  single  portions  of  the 


Ch  v.]  Hildc  and  Gudrun.  133 

story.  But  the  author  of  Gudrun  freed  himself  from  the  song-form, 
and  yet  at  the  same  time  turned  it  to  account  to  spare  himself 
transitional  passages,  to  avoid  the  repetition  of  secondary  incidents, 
and  to  make  the  whole  more  connected.  The  beginning  of  the 
poem  is  slight  and  sketchy,  and  it  is  only  after  Gudrun's  imprison- 
ment that  the  narrative  becomes  fuller;  the  poet  thus  attains 
dramatic  concentration  without  giving  up  any  of  the  advantages 
of  the  epic.  He  has  throughout  imparted  grandeur  and  originality 
to  the  legend,  which  had  become  rather  trivial  in  certain  parts. 
But  for  this  very  reason  his  work  never  attained  the  wide-spread 
popularity  of  the  Nibelungenlied.  It  was  not  readily  adopted 
by  the  people,  for  it  had  not  that  same  local  hold  on  South 
Germany  which,  for  instance,  Siegfried  had  in  Worms,  or  Rudiger 
in  Pochlarn,  or  the  Huns  in  Hungary.  Hence  the  fame  and 
popularity  of  the  poem  were  by  no  means  commensurate  with  its 
intrinsic  merit. 

The  conciseness  of  the  narrative  in  '  Gudrun '  afforded  the 
minstrels  an  irresistible  opportunity  for  supplements  Later  addi- 
and  additions,  and  an  enormous  number  of  such  tions  to 
additions  have  accumulated  round  the  original  poem.  'Gudrun.' 
Their  main  object  was,  as  in  the  Nibelungenlied,  to  devote  more 
attention  to  the  manners  and  customs  of  chivalry,  to  describe  court- 
festivals,  clothes,  tournaments,  and  generally  to  introduce  detailed 
description  of  circumstances  and  things.  Though  the  author  himself 
despised  these  outward  considerations,  yet  he  had  much  in  common 
with  the  true  essence  of  chivalrous  life  as  seen  in  its  noblest  repre- 
sentatives. The  Minnesang  furnished  him  with  some  suggestions, 
and  his  true  place  is  by  the  side  of  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach 
(cp.  chap.  vi.  §  3).  Wolfram,  the  greatest  of  the  chivalric 
epic  poets,  has  among  his  contemporaries  no  one  more  closely 
related  to  him  in  mind  and  art  than  the  unknown  author  of 
'Gudrun.'  Both  avoid  the  prolixity  so  common  at  the  time;  both 
have  the  same  rugged  sincerity,  humour,  and  manliness.  In  both, 
the  culture  of  the  nobility,  which  stood  under  French  influence,  is 
mingled  with  the  best  that  could  be  accomplished  by  the  national 
art  of  the  minstrels.  Though  the  proportion  of  these  two  elements 
is  different  in  each  of  these  two  poets,  yet  each  had  an  interest  in 


134  Middle  High-German  Popular  Epics. 

both  spheres.  And  yet  a  third,  a  lyric  poet,  is  connected  with  these 
two  epic  poets  through  the  same  union  of  the  chivalrous  and 
popular  elements,  I  mean,  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  (cp.  chap, 
vii.  §  i).  Gudrun,  Wolfram,  and  Walther  are  the  three  cul- 
minating points  of  Middle  High-German  poetry. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   EPICS   OF   CHIVALRY. 

THE  twelfth  century  is  marked  far  and  wide  in  the  literature  of 
the  world  by  the  prevalence  of  love-songs  and  love-romances.  In 
Persia  Nisami  sang  the  fates  of  Medschnun  and  Leila,  prevaience 
of  Khosru  and  Schirin.  In  Provence  the  Troubadours  Of  love- 
originated  those  forms  of  love-songs  which  were  after-  poems  in  the 
wards  adopted  by  the  Romanic  and  Germanic  nations.  cer 
Northern  Fiance  produced  a  rich  harvest  of  romances  of  chivalry 
and  love,  derived  in  part  from  Celtic  sources.  The  German 
knights  followed  the  example  of  their  French  companions  in  arms, 
and,  inspired  by  Frederick  Barbarossa's  glorious  deeds,  began  them- 
selves to  cultivate  the  art  of  poetry.  They  borrowed  from  the 
Proven9al  as  well  as  from  Northern  French ;  they  cultivated  both 
lyric  and  epic  poetry,  and  advanced  gradually  from  simple  popular 
songs  to  artistic  imitations  of  foreign  models.  They  imitated  the 
French  in  relating  stories  of  famous  lovers ;  they  endeavoured  to 
realise  in  their  lives  what  had  delighted  them  in  romance,  and  their 
lyric  poetry  was  in  turn  inspired  by  their  own  varied  love- 
experiences. 

The  three  pairs  of  lovers  who  were  first  received  into  the  favour 
of  the  German  poets  of  this  period,  were  :  Flore  and  Blancheflur, 
Tristan  and  Isolde,  Aeneas  and  Dido. 

'Flore  and  Blancheflur'  means  '  Flower  and  Whiteflower,'  and 
perhaps  the  story  of  these  two  lovers  was  originally   « Fiore  and 
a  fairy-tale  of  the  loves  of  two  flowers,  like  the  rose  Biancheflur.' 
and  the  lily.      Flowers  and  love  are  indissolubly  connected  ;  the 
blossoming  of  the  flowers  brings  joy  to  the  lover's  heart ;  he  likens 


136  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  VI. 

the  colour  of  his  lady's  face  to  roses  and  lilies,  and  mediaeval 
poetry  loves  to  tell  how  two  flowers,  entwining  themselves  together, 
grow  out  of  the  graves  of  devoted  lovers,  who  in  life  could  not 
be  united. 

Flore  and  Blancheflur  are  two  children  who  are  devoted  to 
each  other,  and  notwithstanding  all  difficulties  are  united  at  last. 
Blancheflur  is  born  among  heathens,  being  the  daughter  of  a 
Christian  taken  prisoner  in  war.  Flore,  the  son  of  the  heathen 
king,  born  on  the  same  day,  loves  her  and  wins  her  love. 
Blancheflur  is  sold  to  Babylon,  an  1  is  to  marry  the  Sultan,  who 
keeps  her  shut  up  in  a  tower.  But  Flore  follows  her,  bribes  her 
keeper,  and  is  carried  into  her  tower  entirely  hidden  in  a  basket 
of  flowers.  They  are  discovered  together  and  condemned  to  die. 
Flore,  having  a  magic  ring  which  can  protect  him  from  death,  offers 
it  to  his  beloved,  but  she  refuses  to  accept  it,  so  they  throw  it  away 

_  and  resolve  to  die  together.  This  devotion  touches  the 

poem  on  this  tyrant's  heart,  and  the  pair  are  pardoned  and  at  length 

subject,      united.     This  poem  was  translated  from  the  French, 

circa     70.    a^out  x  z  ^Oj  by  a  poet  of  the  lower  Rhineland,  who  told 

the  story  with  the  simplicity  which  it  demands  in  order  to  produce 

the  right  effect.     Unfortunately,  only  portions  of  his  work  have 

come  down  to  us. 

Tristan  and  Isolde  were  introduced  into  German  literature  about 

the   same   time    by   a    k  light    called    Eilhard    von 
Eimard.  von 

Oberge's  Oberge,  who  came  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Hildes- 
'  Tristan  and  heim,  and  appears  to  have  written  at  the  Court 
of  the  Guelph  prince,  Henry  the  L:on  (1139-1195). 
His  work,  perhaps  more  than  any  other,  became  an  ideal  of  chival- 
rous life.  It  contained  everything  that  could  fire  the  knightly 
imagination,  for  its  main  theme  was  a  passionate  attachment  lead- 
ing to  many  tragic  complications,  while  it  also  furnished  descrip- 
tions of  battles  and  single  combats,  faithful  pictures  of  real  life,  of 
chivalrous  education  and  refined  manners,  together  with  fabulous 
elements,  such  as  a  conflict  with  a  dragon  and  a  powerful  love 
potion.  The  book  is  a  complete  biography  of  an  ideal  hero,  to 
whose  lot  fell  all  that  the  world  can  yield  of  honour,  fame,  and 
happiness,  but  also  of  bitter  sorrow. 


Ch.  vi.]  Heinrich  von   Veldeke.  137 

But  Flore  and  Blancheflur,  Tristan  and  Isolde,  were  soon  forced 
to  retire  in  favour  of  a  third  pair  of  lovers;  it  was  Aeneas  and 
Dido  who  were  to  usher  in  the  classical  period  of  chivalrous  poetry 
in  Germany.  The  two  former  stories  were  later  on  treated  afresh 
in  a  new  and  more  perfect  style,  and  the  pioneers  who  had  first 
sung  of  Flore  and  Blancheflur,  of  Tristan  and  Isolde  in  the  German 
tongue  were  forgotten  or  despised.  They  were  entirely  eclipsed  by 
Heinrich  von  Veldeke,  who  introduced  the  Aeneid  into  German 
literature,  and  who,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  was  looked  upon 
as  the  father  of  chivalrous  poetry.  His  more  renowned  followers 
bore  witness  to  his  merits,  saying  that  he  had  planted  on  German 
soil  the  tree  from  whose  branches  they  plucked  the  blossoms  of 
their  poetry. 

HEINRICH  VON  VELDEKE. 

Heinrich   von   Veldeke   was    born    in   the    neighbourhood   of 
Mastricht,  and  was  in  the  service  of  the  Counts  of  Looz  and 
Rineck,   who   were    also   Burgraves    of  Mainz.     He   was   most 
probably  in  Mainz  during  Whitsuntide  in  the  year       Great 
1184,  when  Frederick  Barbarossa  bestowed  knight-     imperial 
hood  on  his  sons  Henry  and  Frederick,  and  held  a    festival  at 
feast  which  displayed  10  all  Europe  the  magnificence      amz> 
of  the  imperial  German  court.     Nearly  seventy  thousand  knights 
were  assembled  in  the  Rheingau,  and  were  accommodated  in  a 
city  of  tents   and  wooden   sheds.     Latin,  German,  and   French 
poets,  as  well  as  the  historians  of  the  period,  are  full  of  the  glories 
of  this  gathering. 

Poetry  itself  must  have  derived  much  benefit  from  the  friendly 
intercourse  of  German  and  French  knights  on  that  festal  occasion. 
Hardly  twenty  years  had  passed  since  the  German  nobility  had 
begun  themselves  to  write  poetry ;  it  therefore  still  had  for  them 
all  the  charm  of  novelty,  and  must  no  doubt  have  been  one  of  the 
ornaments  of  this  feast.  It  was  then  probably  that  the  Crown- 
Prince  Henry  sang  those  love -songs  which  bear  his  name,  or 
ordered  them  to  be  composed  by  some  of  the  wandering  gleemen. 

Then,  if  not  earlier,  the  bright  joyous  songs  of  Heinrich  von 
Veldeke  must  have  been  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  South- 


138  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  vi. 

German  poets,  and  he  may  then  have  personally  set  forth  those  new 
laws  of  poetic  diction,  which  he  was  anxious  to  see  established.  He 
had  finished  his  Aeneid  a  short  time  before,  and  had  a  new  secret  to 
impart  to  his  brother  poets,  namely,  the  discovery  of  pure  rhyme. 

The  rhyme  of  the  ninth  century,  the  rhyme  of  Otfried  and  his 
colleagues,  was  mere  assonance.  Even  the  religious  poets  of  the 
eleventh  century  at  first  employed  a  perfectly  free  assonance,  which 
Pur  rh  m  l^e  course  °f  tf16  twelfth  century  gradually  ap- 
introduced  proached  nearer  to  pure  rhyme,  without  ever  perfectly 
by  Heinrich.  attaining  it.  The  honour  of  having  made  the  last 
e'  step  in  this  direction  was  attributed  by  his  contem- 
poraries to  Veldeke,  and  history  has  adopted  their  statement. 
That  they  should  have  prized  so  highly  a  mere  technical  improve- 
ment shows  how  much  they  thought  of  perfect  form,  of  which  pure 
rhyme  is  a  symbol.  At  the  same  time  Veldeke's  language  was 
not  even  pure  Middle  High-German ;  he  used  his  native  dialect, 
though  perhaps  with  some  modifications.  But  the  knights  of  the 
Lower  Rhine  and  of  the  Belgian  provinces  were  considered  the 
most  cultivated  in  Germany,  so  much  so  that,  as  far  as  the  borders 
of  Austria,  people  who  wished  to  affect  an  air  of  refinement 
mingled  Flemish  phrases  in  their  conversation.  Thus  Veldeke 
was  armed  with  a  certain  authority  owing  to  his  birthplace,  when 
he  joined  the  knightly  company  which  had  gathered  round  the 
Emperor  at  Mainz.  His  opinion  was  received,  it  appears,  without 
opposition,  and  his  example  exerted  an  influence  in  and  around 
Mainz;  in  Thuringia  he  founded  a  regular  school  of  poetry,  in 
what  was  then  called  Allemannia  Hartmann  von  Aue  followed  in 
his  steps,  and  in  Bavaria  the  great  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  called 
him  his  master  and  lamented  his  early  death. 

Veldeke  had  already  written  a  Legend  of  St.  Servatius,  which 
excited  no  attention ;  he  then  wrote  his  Aeneid,  and  at  once 
became  famous.  The  names  of  Rome  and  Troy  had  not  yet  lost 
their  magic  power.  Chivalry  was  supposed  to  have  begun  at  Troy, 
and  the  ancient  Roman  empire  was  now  in  German  hands.  The 
founder  of  Rome  was,  according  to  Virgil,  descended  from  the 
Trojan  Aeneas,  and  Virgil,  who  had  sung  Aeneas'  adventures,  was 
looked  upon  in  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  prophet  of  Christ 


Ch.  vi.]  Heinrich  von   Veldeke.  139 

But  Veldeke  did  not  found  his  Aeneid  on  that  of  Virgil,  though 
he  appeals  to  his  authority,  but  on  a  French  rendering  , 

of  the  Latin  poet.    He  had  already  begun  it  about  the     « Aeneid,' 
year  1175,  and  sent  what  was  finished  to  a  Countess    completed 
of  Cleves.     On  the  lady's  marriage  with  the  Land- 
grave Ludwig  of  Thuringia  the  manuscript  was  stolen  from  her  by 
a  certain  Count  Heinrich,  who  took  it   to  Thuringia,  evidently 
meaning  to  enjoy  it  with  his  friends.     This  incident  is  an  evidence 
of  the  great  interest  which  nobles  took  at  that  time  in  German 
poetry.     It  was  not  till  nine  years  later  that  the  poet  got  back  his 
work  in  Thuringia,  and  completed  it  there  under  the  patronage 
of  the  Count  Palatine  of  Saxony,  afterwards  Landgrave  Hermann 
of  Thuringia.     This  cultured  prince,  at  whose  court  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach  and  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  afterwards  met,  first 
comes  before  our  notice  as  the  patron  of  Veldeke. 

Veldeke,  like  his  predecessors  the  authors  of '  Flore'  and '  Tristan,' 
and  like  his  successors,  Hartmann  von  Aue,  Gottfried  His  French 
von  Strassburg  and  many  others,  was  a  translator  from  original, 
the  French.  These  poets  all  followed  in  the  steps  of  the  priests 
Lambrecht  and  Konrad.  They  had  little  to  do  with  the  invention 
of  their  stories,  as  little  as,  or  even  less  than  the  authors  of 
the  Nibelungenlied,  and  much  less  than  the  older  gleemen,  the 
authors  of  the  Oriental  and  Crusading  poems.  These  chivalrous 
epic  poets  were  as  faithful  to  their  French  authorities  as  the  poets 
of  the  Nibelungenlied  were  to  the  traditional  form  of  the  legend. 
The  chivalrous  poets  only  show  originality  in  their  lyric  songs ;  as 
romance-writers  they  are  mostly  translators.  Their  individuality 
only  appears  in  the  choice  of  their  story  and  in  their  method  of 
treating  it.  But  they  are  not  faithful  translators  in  our  sense  of  the 
word,  for  they  do  not  care  to  reproduce  a  foreign  work  in  its  own 
style  and  with  its  own  peculiar  characteristics ;  they  are  rather,  to 
borrow  an  expression  of  Goethe's,  '  parodying  translators,'  trying 
to  replace  the  foreign  fruit  by  a  substitute  which  has  grown  on 
their  native  soil.  In  this  the  German  chivalrous  poets  only 
followed  the  method  of  the  French  writers  who  were  their  models. 

The  old  French  writers,  however,  were  far  bolder  in  their  treat- 
ment of  foreign  works  than  their  German  translators.     Veldeke  is 


140  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

more  faithful  to  his  French  original  than  the  latter  is  to  Virgil.    The 
Character  of  French  author  expanded  the  six  lines  which  Virgil 

Veldeke's  devotes  to  Lavinia  into  fourteen  hundred,  and  thus 
poem.  made  a  complete  romance  out  of  this  episode.  Vel- 
deke  never  ventured  on  such  bold  changes  as  this ;  for  the  most 
part  he  only  expanded  still  further  those  portions  of  the  story  in 
which  outward  events  and  marvellous  incidents  were  kept  in  the 
background,  so  as  to  give  more  scope,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the 
expression  of  feelings,  and  on  the  other  to  the  description  of 
weapons,  costumes,  and  such  like.  The  chief  points  of  interest  to 
these  aristocratic  poets  were  the  feelings  of  men  and  the  luxuries 
with  which  they  could  surround  themselves ;  their  own  pride  and 
their  own  love  of  luxury  could  thus  find  utterance.  Veldeke 
briefly  passes  over  the  story  of  Laokoon,  the  destruction  of  Troy, 
the  death  of  Priam  and  the  flight  of  Aeneas,  but  misses  no  word 
of  the  loves  and  sorrows  of  Dido.  He  omits  the  marvellous 
elements,  so  far  as  they  were  connected  with  ancient  mythology;  he 
omits  almost  all  pictures  of  ancient  manners,  all  antiquarian  or 
topographical  details,  in  fact  everything  that  appeals  to  the  interest 
in  vanished  times  and  places.  He  also  leaves  out  a  number  of 
classical  allegories,  such  as  the  description  of  Fortuna  or  of  Fama, 
or  of  the  gates  of  the  lower  world,  which  the  French  author  had 
taken  a  certain  delight  in  translating.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
German  has  outdone  the  Frenchman  in  his  description  of  the 
Sibyl  and  Cerberus,  of  whom  he  makes  most  terrible  monsters. 
But  on  the  whole  we  must  confess  that  Veldeke's  individuality 

Veldeke's  hardly  appears  at  all  in  his  Aeneid,  and  it  is  only 
songs.  from  his  songs  and  proverbs  that  we  learn  anything 
about  his  character.  In  them  he  appears  as  a  simple-hearted, 
merry  individual,  who  worships  cheerfulness  and  abhors  discontent, 
and  enjoys  the  simple  pleasures  of  life  with  a  grateful  enthusiasm. 
He  praises  love,  the  spring,  and  the  song  of  birds.  He  says  that 
the  song  of  the  birds  and  the  trees  in  blossom  fill  his  heart  with 
such  gladness,  that  he  is  even  comforted  at  parting  with  his  lady- 
love, whence  we  gather  that  his  grief  at  leaving  her  is  not  very 
ileep.  He  is  always  ready  with  humorous  touches.  Thus,  after 
he  has  offended  the  lady  of  his  heart,  he  is  yet  in  the  humour 


ch.  vi.]  Heinrich  von  Veldeke.  141 

to  write  a  song  in  which  he  makes  her  scold  him  roundly.     His 
style  is  lively  and  his  imagery  clear  and  effective. 

In  Thuringia  Veldeke  found  a  successor  in  the  lyric  poet  Hein- 
rich von  Morungen,  whose  songs  have  at  times  quite  Heinrich  von 
a  modern  ring  about  them.     He,  too,  is  graphic  in    Morungen. 
style  and  full  of  imagination,  though  his  ideas  and  similes  often  re- 
peat themselves;  at  the  same  time  he  is  witty,  like  a  true  follower  of 
the  Troubadours.   Morungen  has  drawn  on  ancient  mythology  more 
than  any  other  Minnesanger,  and  this  may  be  attributed  to  the 
atmosphere  in  which  he  grew  up ;  Veldeke's  Aeneid 
had  more  influence  in  Thuringia  than  anywhere  else,  influence  due 
In  Thuringia  a  certain  Biterolf  composed  a  Song  of  to  Veldeke's 
Alexander,  which   has   not   been    preserved   to    us.         enei  ' 
Herbert  von  Fritzlar,  a  '  learned  scholar '  as  he  calls  himself,  wrote, 
at  the  instance  of  the  Landgrave  Hermann,  a  '  War  of  Troy,'  as  a 
kind  of  introduction  to  the  Aeneid.     Albrecht  von  Halberstadt,  a 
divine  of  Jechaburg,  began  in   1210  to  translate  Ovid's  Metamor- 
phoses.   While  Herbert's  work  is  again  based  on  a  French  author, 
Albrecht  returned  directly  to  the  original.     Thus  the  Epic  poets 
of  the  Augustan  era  were  revived  to  new   honour,  and  even  of 
Homer  some  shadow  at  least  was  conjured  up. 

Benoit  de  Sainte  More,  the  French  narrator  of  the  Trojan  war, 
did  not  derive  his  materials  from  Homer,  but  from  very  late  and 
doubtful  sources.  He  introduced  the  whole  legend  of  the  Argo- 
nauts into  his  poem,  and  enlivened  the  narrative  of  the  many  com- 
bats round  Troy  by  the  episode  of  Troilus  and  Briseida ;  this  story 
was  very  popular  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  was  treated  by  various 
poets,  amongst  others  by  Chaucer ;  it  was  finally  immortalised  by 
Shakespeare  in  his  '  Troilus  and  Cressida.'  In  introducing  pairs 
of  lovers  like  Aeneas  and  Lavinia,  or  Troilus  and  Briseida,  the 
French  romance  writers  of  the  Middle  Ages  paid  homage  to  the 
prevailing  taste  of  their  time,  just  as  in  a  later  era  Corneille  and 
Schiller  thought  it  necessary  to  satisfy  the  sentimental  readers  of 
their  days  by  introducing  love  passages  into  heroic  tragedy. 

Herbert  von  Fritzlar  considerably  curtailed  the  garrulous  Benoit, 
so  much  so  that  his  narrative  sometimes  becomes  a  little  obscure. 
He  asserts  his  own  individuality  far  more  than  Veldeke  did.  He 


142  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

is  rather  coarse,  and  delights  in  scenes  of  horror  and  murder,  in 
Herbert  von  imprecations  and  abusive  language.  He  pays  little 

Fritzlar's  heed  to  artistic  form,  but  he  has  clearly  realised  the 
•War  of  Troy.  story  to  himself.  Instead  of  directly  describing 
Medea's  attire,  he  transfers  description  into  action,  and  shows  her 
to  us  fetching  her  toilet  accessories,  parting  her  hair  and  plaiting  her 
tresses.  Herbert  describes  every  little  circumstance  so  minutely 
that  it  becomes  ludicrous.  For  instance,  he  tells  us  that  Jason 
kissed  Medea  at  parting  once,  twice,  thrice,  and  would  have  kissed 
her  oftener,  but  her  mouth  was  wet  with  her  tears.  The  descrip- 
tion of  the  death  of  Paris  is  most  poetical.  The  lamentations 
over  the  beautiful  youth,  slain  in  the  spring-time,  breathe  the  tone 
of  genuine  grief,  and  the  dull  brooding  sorrow  of  his  mother 
Hecuba  is  especially  well  described. 

From  the  moral  point  of  view  too,  Herbert  asserts  his  inde- 
pendence. He  purposely  omits,  as  against  his  conscience,  the  praise 
which  the  French  author  bestowed  on  King  Pelias,  for  he  thinks 
that  all  the  good  qualities  that  the  sun  ever  shone  on  cannot  supply 
the  place  of  honesty,  which  the  king  is  totally  wanting  in.  He 
likewise  tries  to  bring  the  conduct  of  the  Trojan  and  Greek  heroes 
more  into  harmony  with  the  feelings  of  honour  demanded  by 
chivalry.  He  makes  Achilles  kill  Hector  in  open  combat,  not,  as 
in  the  French  tale,  by  treacherously  seizing  on  a  favourable  mo- 
ment. Again,  it  is  not  Achilles  himself  who  drags  about  the  body 
of  Troilus,  but  some  inferior  person  specially  introduced  by  the 
poet ;  and  the  gentle  words  which  Achilles  speaks  to  the  dying 
Hector  are  likewise  due  to  the  imagination  of  the  German  author. 
Either  naively  or  purposely,  we  cannot  say  which,  Herbert  has 
introduced  into  the  narrative  ideas  of  German  popular  belief,  and 
even  Christian  sentiments  and  German  customs  and  legal  forms. 

In  this  his  example  was  followed   by  Albrecht  von 
Albrecht 
von  Haiber-  Halberstadt,  who  tried  to  spare  his  readers  everything 

atadt's  trans-  that  would  be  strange  to  them.     In  the  introduction 

lation  of     to  njs  translation  of  Ovid  Albrecht  thinks  it  necessary 

to  inform  them  that  there  was  a  time  in  which  men 

worshipped  idols,  and  that  the  stories  he  was  going  to  tell  belonged 

to  that  time.      He  introduces  into  .his  rendering  of  Ovid  ideas  of 


Ch.  VI.]  Heinrich  i'on    Veldeke,  143 

chivalrous  life  and  conventional  rules  of  propriety  which  are  some- 
times most  absurdly  out  of  place.  Thus  the  Princess  Europa, 
when  carried  off  by  the  bull,  does  not  forget  in  her  distress  to 
gather  up  her  royal  robes  out  of  the  water.  In  telling  the  story  of 
the  grief  of  Niobe,  the  poet  mentions  that  she  forgot  feminine 
propriety  so  far  as  to  run.  He  seeks  to  deprive  mythology  of  all 
its  peculiar  strangeness,  and  calls  nymphs  simply  '  Wasserfrauen,' 
and  dryads  '  Waldfrauen,'  while  the  Furies  receive  the  names  of 
'  Herzeleid  '  (heart-sorrow),  'Vergessenheit'  (oblivion),  and  'Wahn- 
sinn'  (madness).  Albrecht  delights  in  describing  such  things  as 
the  quiet  of  the  woods  or  a  hidden  spring  in  a  cool  shady  dell. 
He  relates,  with  great  feeling,  the  solitary  thoughts  and  dreams  of 
the  maiden  Thisbe,  as  she  waits  and  longs  for  her  lover  in  the 
bright  moonlight,  and  her  sorrow  afterwards  when  she  calls  on 
the  birds  of  the  wood  and  the  wood  itself  with  its  grass  and  foliage 
to  join  in  her  lamentations. 

The  impression  produced  on  us  by  all  these  poets  and  their 
disciples  is  decidedly  a  pleasing  one.     They  never  entirely  lose 
sight  of  reality  as  known  to  them,  and  they  avoid  what  is  abso- 
lutely fantastic.     They  transport  us,  if  not  into  the  midst  of  ancient 
ideas,  yet  at  least  on  to  ancient  soil.     But  in  the  twelfth  and  thir- 
teenth centuries,  with  the  one  exception  of  the  Aeneid,  this  remote 
world  of  antiquity  never  gained  general  favour.     At  the  same  time 
graphic  representations  of  contemporary  life  were  also  little  cared 
for,  otherwise  one  excellent  poem  of  this  period  would  have  found 
more  popularity  and  called  forth  more  imitation  than  appears  to 
have  been  the  case.     It  is  a  poem  which  probably 
appeared  at  Mainz  as  a  first-fruit  of  Veldeke's  in-    fragment, 
fluence,  and  which  describes  a  love  adventure  of  the   '  Moriz  von 
French  poet  Maurice  de  Craon.     The  iramework  is       Craon- 
somewhat  out  of  proportion  to  the  central  theme ;  the  poem  begins 
with  a  history  of  chivalry,  telling  how  it  was  handed  down  from  the 
Greeks  to  the  Romans,  how  it  decayed  under  Nero,  and  finally 
revived  in  France,  whence  it  was  transplanted  also  to  other  coun- 
tries.    The  real  story  only  begins  after  this  lengthy  introduction. 

Maurice  de  Craon  is  in  love  with  a  Countess  of  Beaumont,  who 
promises  him  her  favour,  if  he  will  arrange  a  tournament,  for  she 


H4  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  vi. 

has  never  seen  one.  He  agrees,  and  causes  a  ship  to  be  con- 
structed, which  is  set  up  within  the  lists  before  the  castle  of  the 
Countess,  and  from  which  he  rides  forth  to  the  combat.  The  lady 
afterwards  neglects  to  keep  an  appointed  tryst  with  her  lover,  which 
reveals  to  him  her  coldness  of  heart,  and  he  ends  by  abjuring  her 
service  and  advising  her  to  devote  herself  a  liUle  more  to  her 
husband.  The  lady  feels  guilty,  dejected,  and  humiliated.  On  a 
summer  morning  early,  being  unable  to  sleep  for  sorrow,  she  gets 
up  and  goes  to  a  bower  on  the  castle  walls.  She  stands  alone  at  the 
window,  and  rests  her  cheek  on  her  white  hand,  and  listens  to  the 
song  of  the  nightingale.  One  of  her  maidens,  who  is  her  confidante, 
joins  her,  and  to  her  the  lady  for  the  first  time  opens  her  heart, 
and  laments  her  misery  and  her  spoilt  life.  Here  the  poem  ends. 
It  is  throughout  fresh  and  original,  and  breathes  all  the  early  de- 
light in  chivalrous  life  and  chivalrous  poetry.  The  strange  mixture 
of  narrative  and  reflections,  of  amusement  and  moralising  does  not 
offend  us.  Certain  requisite  features  and  adornments  of  the  love- 
romance  are  introduced  as  a  matter  of  course,  conventional  situa- 
tions such  as  are  presupposed  in  lyric  poetry  and  described  in  the 
epic.  The  influence  of  Eilhard  von  Oberge  and  Heinrich  von  Vel- 
deke  cannot  be  mistaken,  but  the  unknown  poet  of  this  little  tale 
gives  us  more  pleasure  than  the  authors  of  those  diffuse  poems. 
He  also  shows  greater  epic  talent,  for  his  narrative  is  more  concise 
and  animated,  he  prefers  narration  to  description,  and  describes 
things,  where  necessary,  in  a  cursory  manner. 

Towards  the  end  of  this  poem  the  author  laments  the  poverty  of 

the  German  language,  which,  he  says,  throws  great  difficulties  in 

the  way  of  the  poet.     Perhaps  it  was  this  lament  which  called  forth 

'Legend of   an  answer   from   some   patriot   in   the   'Legend  of 

Pilatus.'  Pilatus '  which  appeared  about  this  time  in  the  same 
district  of  the  middle  Rhine.  In  this  legend  Pilate's  father  is  made 
a  King  of  Mainz,  and  he  himself  is  said  to  have  killed  his  brothers 
and  gone  to  Rome.  After  this  he  slew  Paynus,  conquered  the 
land  of  Pontus,  and  was  summoned  by  Herod  to  oppress  the  Jews. 
This  Paynus  was  the  son  of  a  French  king,  but  the  Romans  did 
not  venture  to  punish  his  murderer,  because  they  were  more  afraid 
of  the  Germans  than  of  the  French.  There  is  here  a  direct  con- 


Ch.vi.]  Hartmann  von  Aue  and  Gottfried  von  Strasslurg.  145 

trast  between  this  writer  and  the  author  of '  Moriz  von  Craon,'  who 
upheld  the  Romans  and  French,  as  the  sole  patterns  of  perfect 
chivalry.  And  the  polemical  purpose  of  the  poem  is  made  still  more 
clear  in  its  opening  words ;  the  poet  begins  by  referring  to  the 
fact  that  it  had  been  said  of  the  German  language,  that  its  rough- 
ness was  but  little  suited  to  poetry ;  but,  he  continues,  the  language 
must  be  handled  like  steel,  which  becomes  pliant  on  the  anvil,  and 
care  and  labour  must  be  bestowed  on  it.  And  so  this  poet  sets 
himself  to  his  work  with  modest  confidence  and  patriotic  zeal. 

In  these  poems  connected  with  Mainz,  which  very  probably 
owed  their  origin  to  the  grand  court-festival  there  in  1 184,  we  stand 
at  the  very  source  of  German  chivalrous  poetry.  These  earlier 
poems  may  seem  to  some  readers  to  possess  a  freshness  which 
they  miss  in  the  more  classical  later  works.  The  steel  of  which 
the  author  of  '  Pilatus '  speaks  was  far  from  flexible  enough  for  the 
writers  of  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century.  It  was  beaten  out  again 
and  again,  and  at  length  refined  to  a  degree  which  may  excite  our 
admiration,  but  which  betrays  more  artificiality  than  real  art. 

HARTMANN  VON  AUE  AND  GOTTFRIED  VON  STRASSBURG. 

Among  the  great  German  dynastic  families  of  the  twelfth  century 
the  Guelphs  were  probably  the  first  who  gave  strong    Patrons  of 
support  to  German  poetry,  and  thus  paved  the  way       poetry 
for  the  literary  culture  of  the  nobles.     Next  to  the  ^^winces 
Guelphs,  from  about  the  eighth  decade  of  the  century,    of  the  12th 
Landgrave  Hermann  of  Thuringia  and  the  Austrian     century, 
princes  of  the  house  of  Babenberg  distinguished  themselves  most 
as  patrons  of  poetry. 

The  influence  of  the  Hohenstaufen  is  less  apparent,  and  yet 
their  accession  to  power  was  an  important  event  for  German 
poetry.  Their  vassals,  inhabiting  numerous  castles  on  both  sides 
of  the  Upper  Rhine,  formed  the  nucleus  of  Alemannic  chivalry. 
The  court  of  the  Hohenstaufen  was  the  centre  of  life  for  the  whole 
South- West  of  Germany.  Alsace,  Switzerland,  and  Swabia,  terri- 
tories oi  early  civilization  and  of  great  political  influence,  de- 
veloped considerable  literary  activity.  The  minstrels  were  probably 
well  received  there  throughout  the  twelfth  century ;  the  only  one 


146  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

whom  we  know  by  name,  a  certain  Heinrich  der  Glichezare,  made 
translations  from  the  French  at  the  commission  of  an  Alsatian 
nobleman,  and  in  this  way  produced  the  oldest  German  poem 
on  Reineke  Fuchs.  This  would  seem  to  point  to  a  taste  for 
comic  subjects,  but  fashion  often  changes  quickly,  and  the  great 
poets  of  the  classical  period  belonging  to  the  Upper  Rhine, 
Friedrich  von  Hausen,  Reinmar  von  Hagenau,  and  Gottfried  von 
Strassburg,  are  distinguished  by  their  lofty  seriousness.  The 
circle  of  the  Hohenstaufen  nobility  supplied  all  the  conditions 
for  producing  poetry  like  that  of  the  troubadours,  and  no  ter- 
ritory was  more  fitted  to  become  the  German  Provence  than 
the  Upper  Rhine.  There  too,  as  in  the  province  of  Lan- 
G  ennan  lyric  guedoc,  lyric  poetry  seems  at  first  to  have  prepon- 
poetry  of  the  derated,  but  the  bold  individuality,  the  passion  of  the 
12th  century,  troubadours  were  wanting.  The  Rhenish  poets  do  not 
make  their  poetry  reflect  their  own  feuds  and  hatreds,  their  active 
and  varied  life.  They  lay  aside  their  armour  when  they  approach 
the  Muse,  and  their  lyre,  like  Anacreon's,  breathes  only  tones  of 
love.  But  it  is  not  love,  the  consuming  passion,  which  they  de- 
scribe, nor  even  thoughtless  love  bent  on  careless  enjoyment ;  their 
love-poetry  consists  for  the  most  part  of  clever  conversations  on 
the  subject  of  love.  The  lyric  poem  became  in  their  hands  an 
elaborate  form  of  courtship  full  of  languishing  entreaties  and  flat- 
teries, in  which  there  was  less  of  the  language  of  the  heart  than  of 
the  play  of  wit,  less  of  real  feeling  than  of  intellectual  subtlety. 
Refinement  and  culture  were  sought  after  at  the  expense  of  all  the 
sensuous  elements  of  poetry.  Enjoyment  of  spring  and  of  the  song 
of  birds,  or  lamentation  over  the  fading  foliage  or  the  cold  of  winter, 
were  now  considered  trivial.  These  poets  lack  vivid  colouring  in  de- 
scribing either  joy  or  sorrow,  and  their  utterances  are  toned  down  to 
suit  the  conventions  of  a  society  where  strong  feelings  are  considered 
objectionable  in  a  poet,  and  he  is  only  expected  to  be  interesting. 

The  chief  representatives  of  this  kind  of  lyric  poetry  are  Friedrich 
von  Hausen  and  Reinmar  von  Hagenau. 

Friedrich  von  Hausen,  one  of  the  most  renowned  knights  of  his 
time,  belonged  to  the  circle  of  Frederick  Barbarossa.  He  went 
with  him  to  Italy  and  afterwards  to  the  Eist,  where  he  was  killed 


ch.  vi]  Hartmann  von  Ane  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg.  147 

by  a  fall  from  his  horse  six  months  before  the  Emperor's  own  death 
(May  6,11 90).  From  Italy  he  sends  forth  his  love-corn-  Friedrioh 
plaints  across  the  mountains.  The  Crusade,  he  says,  vonHausen. 
has  produced  a  conflict  between  his  heart  and  his  body ;  his  body 
wishes  to  fight  the  heathen,  but  his  heart  is  devoted  to  a  lady  from 
whom  it  cannot  bear  to  part.  In  an  epigram  he  threatens  with  eternal 
perdition  those  who  have  taken  the  cross  and  yet  have  not  joined 
in  the  Crusade,  and  he  warns  the  ladies  to  withhold  their  favour 
from  such  dastards.  He  commends  to  God's  protection  the  friends 
whom  he  leaves  for  God's  sake.  But  in  general  there  is  little  of 
real  life  reflected  in  his  poetry.  He  delights  in  painting  strange 
contrasts  and  possibilities,  and  in  astonishing  his  hearers  by  unex- 
pected incidents.  The  highest  level  of  his  art  is  shown  in  the 
monologue  of  a  lady  who  cannot  make  up  her  mind  whether  she 
will  grant  or  deny  her  affection  to  her  lover.  She  weighs  the  pros 
and  cons,  she  wavers  from  one  resolve  to  another  and  dares  not 
follow  her  own  wishes,  and  yet  at  length  she  cannot  help  doing  so, 
and  love  triumphs. 

Reinmar  von  Hagenau  continued  Friedrich  von  Hausen's  manner 
and  even  exaggerated  it.  He  delights  in  antithesis  Beinmar  von 
and  in  the  description  of  joys  which  are  not  his,  Hagenau. 
but  which  he  ardently  longs  for.  He  is  gentler  and  more  senti- 
mental than  his  predecessor,  and  love  seems  to  form  the  only  in- 
terest of  his  life.  The  most  trifling  incidents  are  spun  out  by  him 
with  the  greatest  art,  but  to  very  weariness.  His  eternal  lamenta- 
tions only  excited  ridicule ;  people  asked  how  old  his  lady-love 
might  be,  as  he  had  sung  her  praises  so  long.  But  nothing  could 
shake  his  seriousness,  and  he  made  a  virtue  of  his  necessity  by 
exalting  the  torments  of  love  to  the  level  of  a  new  principle  of 
morality.  We  see  throughout  that  Reinmar  is  only  following  the 
fashion  and  flattering  the  taste  of  noble  ladies,  who  were  interested 
by  his  melancholy,  love-lorn  appearance.  There  are  a  few  notes  in 
Reinmar's  songs  which  are  really  the  utterance  of  a  tender  poetical 
soul,  and  as  such  move  us  to  joy  or  sorrow ;  but  the  greater  part 
of  his  poetry  is  evidently  an  artificial  product,  and  hence  is  want- 
ing in  truth  and  genuine  feeling.  We  may  admire  its  construction, 
but  we  miss  the  warmth  which  we  expect  in  lyric  poetry. 


148  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Oh.  vi. 

The  Swabian  poet,  Hartmann  von  Aue,  was  somewhat  younger 
Hartmann  tnan  Reinmar,  and  wrote  chiefly  in  the  last  decade  of 
von  Aue,  the  twelfth  and  the  first  years  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
circa  1200.  jje  was  an  honest  amiable  man,  who  took  life  easily  and 
preserved  his  cheerfulness  to  the  end.  He  had  been  through  the 
school-training  of  the  time,  and  had  learnt  the  fundamental  principles 
of  the  clerical  view  of  life  without  their  having  any  serious  influence 
on  his  own  lighthearted  secular  life.  It  is  true  that  occasionally  in 
his  poems  he  preaches  a  retreat  from  the  world  and  refers  to  the 
transient  nature  of  all  earthly  happiness ;  he  also  took  part  in  the 
Crusade  of  1197,  and  gave  utterance  in  some  of  his  songs  to  fitting 
sentiments  in  connection  with  it;  but  in  his  principal  works  he 
exalts  the  ideals  of  chivalry  :  courage  and  love.  Hartmann  ex- 
pressly requires  that  a  man  should  serve  two  masters,  the  World 
and  God.  He  does  not  attempt  to  conceal  the  opposition  of  these 
two  powers,  but  effects  a  compromise  between  them. 

Hartmann's  lyric  poems  are  more  fresh  and  vigorous,  more  manly, 
too,  than  Reinmar's.  We  see  him  at  first  as  an  unhappy  and 
rejected  lover,  but  he  afterwards  finds  happiness  in  a  second  love. 
Sad  moods  are  only  transitory  with  him,  and  his  real  character 
is  cheerful  and  contented. 

Hartmann's  two  poetical  love-letters,  or  '  Biichlein '  as  they 
His  two  were  then  called,  show  a  great  deal  of  pleasant 
•Buchlein.'  w{t  ancj  naivete.  The  first  of  them  again  betrays 
his  clerical  education.  It  is  an  argument  between  the  body 
and  the  heart,  closely  resembling  in  character  those  Latin  poems 
in  dialogue  (^  Streitgedichie^  so  popular  in  the  Middle  Ages,  in 
which  body  and  soul  were  made  to  utter  reproaches  against  each 
other.  The  poet's  Body  complains  of  his  miserable  and  unsuccess- 
ful love,  but  his  Heart  highly  esteems  the  ideal  resignation,  the  virtue 
which  love  calls  forth,  and  the  honour  which  it  brings.  The 
Dialogue  begins  by  solemnly  defining  the  respective  positions  of  the 
opponents,  and  then  passes  on  to  short  alternate  speeches  of  great 
dramatic  power  and  subtlety.  The  two  enemies  are  finally  recon- 
ciled, and  promise  to  be  good  friends,  and  the  Heart  gives  a  magic 
receipt  by  which  happiness  and  love  can  be  won  :  the  herbs  gene- 
rosity, modesty,  and  humility  must  be  mixed  with  truth  and  con- 


Ch.  vi.'J  Har  tmann  von  Aue  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg.  149 

stancy,  with  chastity  and  true  manliness,  and  poured  into  a  vessel, 
Le.  into  a  heart  free  from  hatred;  those  who  carry  this  mixture 
about  with  them  will  surely  find  happiness.  The  tone  of  Hart- 
mann's  second  'Biichlein'  is  more  serious  and  passionate.  The  poet 
gives  vent  to  despairing  lamentations  over  the  sufferings  that  spring 
from  love  and  over  his  separation  from  his  beloved,  which  he 
thinks  will  drive  him  mad.  But  even  here  he  finds  comfort  in  the 
thought  of  the  faithfulness  which  will  at  length  bring  true  lovers 
together. 

God  and  the  World,  the  Heart  and  the  Body,  quiet  resignation 
and  endless  longing,  the  higher  and  the  lower  elements  of  human 
nature, — contrasts  such  as  these  and  the  means  of  their  reconcilia- 
tion run  through  all  Hartmann's  works,  and  also  influenced  him  in 
the  choice  of  his  epic  themes. 

The  legend  of  '  St.  Gregory '  calls  its  hero,  even  in  the  title, 
the  '  good  sinner.'  The  poet  was  apparently  at-  Legend  of 
tracted  by  this  legend  of  an  innocent  man  who  un-  st-  Gregory. 
wittingly  fell  into  a  great  crime.  He  welcomed  a  story  which  pre- 
sented the  most  extreme  contrasts,  a  decided  secular  life  and  as 
decided  a  life  of  penance,  and  in  addition  to  this  the  most  rapid 
transitions  from  happiness  to  misery  and  from  misery  again  to 
happiness.  Gregory  is  the  Oedipus  of  the  Middle  Ages,  who  has 
unwittingly  married  his  mother,  but  this  terrible  tragedy  here  ends 
in  a  reconciliation.  Gregory  endures  severe  penance,  being  fastened 
by  his  own  wish  to  a  lonely  rock  in  the  sea,  where  he  lives  miracu- 
lously for  seventeen  years,  nourished  only  by  the  water  which 
trickles  down  the  rock.  Repentance  and  penance  turn  the  sinner 
into  a  saint ;  Gregory  is  made  Pope,  and  finds  his  mother  again. 

Hartmann's  'Gregory'  was  founded  on  a  French   poem;  his 
'  Armer    Heinrich/    which    is    now    his    best-known    '  Der  arme 
work,  was   based  on  a  Latin  story  which,  however,    Heinrich.' 
probably   only  furnished  him  with  the  bare  outline,  leaving  him 
free  scope  for  exerting  his  epic  talent.     '  Poor  Henry  '  is  a  kind  of 
Job,  a  man  of  noble  birth,  rich,  handsome,  and  beloved,  who  is 
suddenly  visited  by  God  with  the  terrible  affliction  of  leprosy,  and 
who  can  only  be  cured  by  the  life  blood  of  a  young  maiden  who  is 
willing  to  die  for  him.     The  daughter  of  a  peasant,  to  whose  house 


150  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

he  has  retired  in  his  despair,  resolves  to  sacrifice  her  life  for  him. 
Heinrich  accepts  her  offer,  and  the  knife  which  is  to  kill  her  is 
already  whetted,  when  a  better  feeling  rises  in  his  breast  and  he 
refuses  to  take  upon  himself  the  guilt  of  her  death,  resolving  to 
resign  himself  to  the  will  of  God.  This  resignation  saves  him; 
he  recovers  and  marries  the  maiden,  the  difference  in  rank  prov- 
ing no  obstacle  to  their  union. 

Besides  the  legend  of  '  St.  Gregory '  and  the  pious  tale  of 
'Poor  Henry/  Hartmann  wrote  two  romances,  'Ereck'  and 
'  Iwein.'  .  he  former  was  written  before  '  St.  Gregory,'  the  latter 
after  '  Poor  Henry.'  Both  treat  of  the  contrast  between  heroism 
and  love,  between  devotion  to  the  duties  of  a  knight  and  indolent 
enjoyment  of  domestic  happiness. 

Knight  Ereck  is  in  danger  of  becoming  effeminate  (sich  zu  '  ver- 

liegen  ')  by  the  side  of  his  beloved  Enite.     He  sinks  in 
'Ereck.  6.  ,.    '     .   .  ... 

public  opinion,  the  knights  and  squires  around  him 

are  discontented,  and  Enite  herself  is  unhappy  about  it.  Her 
husband  who  overhears  her  lamentations,  compels  her  to  confess 
the  cause  of  her  grief,  and  is  from  that  moment  roused  from  his 
sloth.  He  starts  alone  with  her  to  seek  for  adventures,  but  being 
angry  with  her  punishes  her  by  repeated  instances  of  foolish 
tyranny,  till  at  length  her  faithful  constancy,  which  repeatedly  saves 
his  life,  and  her  unfailing  patience  and  humility  soften  him  and  win 
his  love  anew. 

The  knight  Iwein  wins  a  beautiful  woman  for  his  wife,   but 

,      shunning  effeminacy  he  leaves  her  and  sets  out  on 

adventures.      He  fails  to  return  at  the  appointed  time 

and  thus  trifles  away  her  affection.     This  drives  him  to  madness, 

from  which  he  is   only  cured  by  a  wonderful  salve.      He   then 

sets  free   a   lion,  who   thenceforward   devotes   itself  to   him   as 

companion  and  helper.     Under  the  title  of  the  Knight  with  the 

Lion,  Iwein,  who  has  concealed  his  own  name,  gains  fresh  renown. 

Under  this  title  he  meets  his  lady  again    and  wins  her  anew  by 

cunning. 

Both  these  knights,  Ereck  and  Iwein,  belong  to  King  Arthur's 
famous  Round  Table.  'Ereck'  was  Hartmann's  earliest  work, 
and  had  a  great  success,  becoming  at  once  the  model  of  narrative 


Ch.  VI.]  Hartmann  von  Aue  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg.  151 

poetry  to  many  less  distinguished  poets.  Through  his  '  Ereck ' 
Hartmann  von  Aue  introduced  the  Arthur-romances  into  German 
literature. 

The  '  Arthur-romances '  form  a  special  class  of  mediaeval  epic 
poetry.  King  Arthur  himself  occupies  but  an  insig-  The'Arthur- 
nificant  place  in  them ;  he  is  only  the  centre  round  romances.' 
which  the  stories  are  grouped,  just  as  Charlemagne  was  the  centre 
for  another  cycle  of  tales.  The  chief  heroes  of  these  romances 
belong  to  Arthur's  court  and  are  members  of  his  Round  Table, 
and  the  Arthur-romances  narrate  iheir  love-adventures  and  knightly 
deeds.  A  high  conception  of  manly  duty  is  the  fundamental  idea 
of  the  Arthur-romances,  but  this  ideal  is  sometimes  rendered  weak 
and  even  absurd  through  one-sided  exaggeration.  The  knight  of 
Arthur's  court  travels  through  the  world  like  Theseus  or  Perseus, 
as  a  protector  of  the  weak  and  a  destroyer  of  the  monsters  who 
threaten  life  and  peace.  He  is  compassionate  and  generous, 
sacrifices  himself  for  the  good  of  others,  and  is  kept  back  by  no 
danger,  however  great.  In  return  it  is  but  fair  that  the  hero  should 
be  rewarded  in  this  life  for  his  deeds,  that  he  should  win  the  heart 
of  the  lady  whom  he  frees  from  danger,  and  that  she  should  at  the 
same  time,  perhaps,  bring  him  power  and  wealth.  The  knights 
themselves  are  faithful  companions  in  arms,  ready  to  come  to  each 
other's  aid  in  any  distress.  But  these  knights  of  medieval  romance 
too  often  court  danger  without  any  purpose,  and  only  in  order  to 
boast  before  their  companions  of  what  they  have  endured.  And  as 
the  danger  often  becomes  utterly  improbable,  and  every  horror  is  con- 
jured up  that  an  excited  imagination  can  dream  of,  we  often  lose 
all  belief  not  only  in  the  actual,  but  also  in  the  symbolical  truth  of 
the  narrative.  Knowing  for  certain  that  the  hero  will  not  be  finally 
vanquished,  we  cannot  long  keep  up  a  feeling  of  suspense.  The 
poetry  touches  us  more  closely  where  the  threatened  danger  comes 
from  within,  when  we  fear  that  two  lovers  who  have  quarrelled  will 
not  be  reconciled,  that  injury  will  not  be  forgiven  or  despotic 
tyranny  longer  endured,  when  we  see  the  hero  driven  to  despair  or 
madness.  These  poets  love  to  appeal  to  the  pity  of  their  readers.  The 
subjects  are  often  well  chosen  and  interesting,  but  the  development 
of  the  story  is  spoilt  by  improbability  or  exaggerated  idealization. 


152  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

The  Arthur-romances  allow  women  a  great  part  in  influencing 
the  destinies  of  men,  but  they  never  describe  love-adventures  with 
the  lifelike  details  which  we  noticed  in  '  Moriz  von  Craon.'  Great 
freedom  of  manners  seems  taken  for  granted,  but  this  freedom 
never  rises  above  the  level  of  frivolity,  either  through  the  influence 
of  strong  passion  or  noble  devotion. 

Meaningless  adventures  and  meaningless  love-making  charac- 
terise the  decline  of  the  Arthur-romances,  and  there  is  hardly  a 
work  in  this  widely  developed  class  of  literature  that  is  free  from  these 
Ch       t  rs   blemishes.     We  must  not,  therefore,  expect  to  find  in 
of  the        the  Arthur-romances  any  rich  development  of  char- 
Arthur-      acter.     The  men  never  get  beyond  the  Theseus-ideal, 
and  the  possible  variations  in  this  ideal  are  but  few. 
The  general  type  of  hero,  without   fear  and  without  reproach,  is 
seen  in  the  Knight  Gawein  or  Gawan,  the  nephew  of  King  Arthur 
and  the  friend  of  Iwein  and  Parzival.     One  figure  alone  is  brought 
forward  as  a  complete  contrast  in  character  to  all  the  rest,  the 
Knight  Kei,  Seneschal  of  Arthur's  court.    He  is  the  Thersites  of 
the  Round  Table,  impudent,  malicious,  boastful,  and  at  the  same 
time   always   unfortunate  in  the  combats  into  which  he  rushes. 
Even  the  women  are  all  reduced  more  or  less  to  the  same  type 
through  this  system  of  vague  idealisation.     They  are  all  lovely,  all 
objects  to  be  coveted,  all  gifted  in  conversation ;  there  is  no  ap- 
parent difference  between  maiden  and  wife,  or  between  mistress 
and  maid. 

King  Arthur  had  already  been  introduced  into  literature  in  the 

Geoffrey  of   ^rst  na^  °^  tne  twe^tn  century.     The  British  chronicle 

Monmouth's  of  Geoffrey,  Archdeacon   of  Monmouth,  written   in 

Chronicle,    Latin,  first  proclaimed  his  fame  to  the  world.     It  told 

ury'  how  King  Arthur,  the  ruler  of  Britain,  had  subdued 

the  Saxons  and  Germans,  how  he   conquered  Ireland,   Iceland, 

Norway,  and  Gaul,  and  how  his  knights  became  an  example  for 

distinguished  warriors  in  the  most  distant  parts  of  the  earth.     Even 

a  Roman  army  under  Lucius  Tiberius  was  said  to  have  succumbed 

to  his  power.     But  he  was  mortally  wounded  in  a  civil  war,  and 

died  in  542  A.D       It  is  not  strange  that  Geoffrey's  contemporaries 

should  have  accused  him  of  falsehood,  but  his   bold  forgery  of 


ch.  vi.]  Hartmann  von Aue and  Gdttfried  von  Strassburg.  153 

history  was  at  all  events  in  part  based  on  Breton  tradition.  The 
Bretons  told  many  stories  about  their  wonderful  King  Arthur  who 
was  still  alive  somewhere,  and  would  come  again  to  restore  great- 
ness to  his  people.  The  Breton  popular  poetry  showed  great  ferti- 
lity in  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  the  popular  epics 
of  Brittany  were  eagerly  taken  up  by  the  French  minstrels.  Ro- 
mances, both  in  prose  and  poetry,  were  founded  on  these  minstrel- 
poems,  and  Celtic  traditions,  myths  and  stories,  thus  found  their 
way  into  European  literature.  This  was  the  case  with  the  tale  of 
Tristan  and  Isolde,  with  the  Arthur-romances,  and  probably  with 
the  story  of  the  Holy  Grail  and  of  Parzival. 

Chrestien  of  Troyes  was  the  first  French  poet  of  culture  who 

treated  the  Arthurian  legends.     He  was  one  of  the 

Hartmann 
most  important  poets  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  was    translated 

patronised   and   encouraged   by  the  Flemish   court.         from 
He  immortalised  Ereck  and  Enite  and  the  Knight  Chrestien  of 

TrovGS 

with  the  Lion  in  his  brilliant  romances,  and  Hartmann 
von  Aue  made  these  romances  accessible  to  the  German 
public.  For  Hartmann  also  was  but  a  translator  l:ke  Veldeke, 
and  kept  his  own  individuality  in  the  background.  StiH,  we 
find  in  his  epics  many  slight  but  characteristic  departures  from 
the  original,  and  the  differences,  such  as  they  are,  seem  to 
spring  from  greater  refinement  and  better  taste.  The  French- 
man is  reckless  in  his  wish  to  represent  everything  gra- 
phically, and  when  he  wishes  to  produce  a  strong  effect  he 
has  no  regard  for  the  dignity  of  his  subject.  He  makes  one 
knight  say,  he  would  rather  have  a  tooth  drawn  than  relate  a 
certain  story.  Another  knight  hacks  a  piece  off  the  cheek  of 

a  giant,  the  size  of  a  cutlet.     Hartmann  avoids  all 

.._,,.  Differences 

such  expressions.     Chrestien  at  dinner  gives  us  the      between 

full  menu,  while  Hartmann  replaces  it  by  generalities.     Chrestien 

Chrestien  jestingly  remarks  that  women  can  only  aid         and 

,        ,    .  ,          Hartmann. 

a  warrior  by  their  prayers,  for  they  have  no  other 

weapon.  Hartmann  replaces  the  jest  by  the  gallant  remark  that 
'God  is  so  noble  that  He  cannot  refuse  the  petition  of  so  many 
beautiful  lips.'  Chrestien  introduces  religious  forms  and  ceremonies 
wherever  it  seems  convenient,  but  he  also  allows  himself  occasional 


154  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  vi. 

attacks  on  the  clergy.  The  latter  Hartmann  omits  entirely,  and  re- 
places Chrestien's  admixture  of  prayers  and  religious  forms  by  a  vague 
devotion  to  God,  who  appears  as  a  helper  in  time  of  need.  Probably 
the  direct  introduction  of  religious  acts  in  a  romance  seemed  to  him 
blasphemous.  Hartmann  again  is  of  a  much  more  sentimental 
nature  than  Chrestien.  In  Chrestien's  work  Iwein  and  Gawein  are 
merely  fellow-soldiers  and  boon-companions,  but  Hartmann  thus 
characterises  their  friendship :  '  They  bore  each  other's  joys  and 
sorrows.'  Chrestien  endows  his  women  only  with  grace  of  demeanour 
and  language  ;  Hartmann  makes  goodness  of  heart  and  gentleness 
their  chief  ornaments.  The  Frenchman  occasionally  speaks  in 
a  derogatory  tone  of  women;  the  German  would  never  think  of 
doing  so.  With  Hartmann  all  is  courtesy,  consideration,  kindness, 
and  modesty.  In  short,  the  Frenchman  is  natural  and  therefore 
interesting,  the  German  conventional  and  monotonous.  The 
characters  of  the  Frenchman  are  meant  to  amuse,  those  of  the 
German  to  serve  as  ideals  of  life.  Chrestien  is  a  true  exponent 
of  Gallic  humour,  of  the  much  renowned  'gaite*  gauloise.' 
There  is  no  more  pleasant  occupation  than  to  read  his  'Ereck.' 
The  cheerful  radiance  of  the  chivalrous  life  is  diffused  over  the 
whole  of  it.  Chrestien  revels  in  his  story  and  tries  to  make 
it  as  interesting  and  amusing  as  possible,  not  even  shrinking  from 
rudeness  and  coarseness  where  it  suits  his  purpose.  Hartmann,  on 
the  contrary,  treats  his  characters  with  a  kind  of  religious  venera- 
tion, and  adorns  them  with  all  virtues  and  excellencies.  He  avoids 
all  realism,  and,  like  the  translators  of  the  twelfth  century,  pays 
special  attention  to  the  development  of  the  inner  life.  Outward 
incidents  are  kept  in  the  background,  but  their  influence  on  men, 
and  the  feelings  and  utterances  of  the  latter  are  brought  into 
prominence.  The  chief  events  of  the  story  are  intended  to  excite 
a  gentle  emotion  in  the  reader. 

All  these  characteristics  of  Hartmann's  poetry  are  in  harmony 
Hartmann's  with  the  literary  traditions  of  the  chivalrous  poets  of 
style.  tne  Upper  Rhine.  His  colourless  measured  style 
belongs  to  the  school  of  Friedrich  von  Hausen  and  Reinmar  von 
Hagenau.  In  conduct  as  in  style  he  favours  grace,  refinement, 
and  uniform  polish.  His  '  Ereck '  still  shows  some  youthful  imper- 


ch.vi.]  Hartmann  von  Aue  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg.  155 

fections,  but  '  Iwein  '  is  a  really  classical  work,  marvellously  fluent 
in  language,  and  remarkable  for  its  perfect  finish  and  pleasing 
variety.  The  work  begun  by  Eilhard  von  Oberge  and  his  contem- 
poraries, and  carried  on  by  Heinrich  von  Veldeke,  reached  its 
culminating  point  in  Hartmann  von  Aue.  These  chivalrous  poets 
had  to  acquire  afresh  that  ease  and  breadth  of  style  which  epic 
poetry  demands,  and  which,  after  having  been  neglected  by  the  min- 
strels of  the  tenth,  had  only  been  partially  recovered  by  the  clerical 
poets  and  minstrels  since  the  eleventh  century.  Where  the  minstrel 
of  the  tenth  century  rushed  on  hurriedly,  the  chivalrous  epic  poet  of 
the  twelfth  century  lingered  to  contemplate  ;  the  former  laughed  at 
his  heroes,  the  latter  looked  up  to  them  with  admiration. 

The  bold  style  of  the  earlier  epics  acquired  breadth  and  adorn- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  chivalrous  poets,  and  acquired  them  to  a 

higher  degree  than  was  ever  attained  by  the  great 

c    ,  .    ,       r™  .  Style  of  the 

popular  epics  of  the  same  period.     This  was  partly 


owing  to  difference  of  form.  The  verse-form  em-  and  popular 
ployed  in  the  popular  epics  required  that  the  thought  EPics  com- 
should  be  completed  with  each  stanza.  Hence  the 
narrative  would  naturally  proceed  rapidly  from  one  incident  to 
another  and  have  something  about  it  akin  to  the  ballad.  The 
usual  form  adopted  in  the  chivalrous  epics,  on  the  contrary,  is  that 
of  short  couplets,  not  divided  into  verses,  and  somewhat  similar  in 
character  to  the  alliterative  'Long-verses'  of  the  old  Germanic  epics. 
These  continuous  rhymed  couplets  allowed  a  liberty  of  style  almost 
approaching  that  of  prose.  The  verses  of  the  popular  epic  would 
naturally  be  sung,  while  with  the  rhymed  couplets  this  would  be 
impossible.  The  style  of  the  popular  epic  has  something  declam- 
atory about  it,  while  the  tone  of  the  chivalrous  epic  is  that  of  refined 
conversation.  But  the  chivalrous  epic  only  slowly  freed  itself  from 
the  style  of  the  popular  epic,  and  we  can  clearly  trace  the  develop- 
ment of  this  process. 

Eilhard   von   Oberge's   style   is   still  closely   akin    to   that   of 
the  minstrels.     He  gives   us   descriptions   of  battle?     Eilhard's 
expressed  in  the    traditional   realistic  formulae,   and        style. 
though  he   shows   many  traces   of  humour,  yet  he  often  adopts 
the  conventional  pathetic  tone  and  employs  many  set  forms  of 


156  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  vi. 

expression.  His  style  is  unequal  and  abrupt  and  lacks  anima- 
tion, and  he  observes  no  restraints  in  his  choice  of  language. 
On  the  other  hand  we  find  him  employing  many  foreign  words 
which  had  been  introduced  into  aristocratic  society,  and  attach- 
ing great  importance  to  a  due  observance  of  etiquette.  He 
also  makes  attempts  to  describe  externals,  such  as  weapons 
and  garments,  and  constantly  introduces  monologues  to  reveal 
the  feelings  and  thoughts  of  his  characetrs,  while  in  dialogue 
he  employs  the  short  dramatic  colloquy,  in  which  question  and 
answer  follow  rapidly,  like  blow  on  blow.  By  these  devices, 
chiefly  borrowed  from  the  French  epics,  he  distinguished  himself 
from  the  popular  poets  and  prepared  the  way  for  his  greater 
chivalrous  colleagues. 

In  Veldeke,  too,  the  popular  element  has  not  quite  disappeared. 

"Veldeke's     When  praising  the   sword  which  Vulcan    sends  to 

style.        Aeneas,  he  compares  it  with  three  famous  swords  of 

German  hero-legend,  and  declares  it  to  have  been  harder  and  sharper 

than  any  of  these.    Veldeke  still  has  much  in  common  with  Eilhard, 

but  his  poetry  has  less  of  set  formulas  and  traditional  similes  than 

Eilhard's,  and  he  is  also  superior  to  him  in  pure  rhyme  and  skilful 

syntax.    Veldeke  went  much  further  in  psychological  analysis  than 

any  of  his  predecessors,  French  or  German,  and  his  poetry  also 

gave  much  greater  scope  to  description. 

In  his  'Ereck'  Hartmann  von  Aue  carried  description  to  the 
Hartmann's  extreme  of  absurdity.  His  description  of  Enite's 
style.  horse  occupies  about  five  hundred  lines.  In  '  Iwein ' 
he  laid  aside  this  bad  habit,  and  this  later  poem  is  a  model  of  epic 
style.  Situations  and  habits  of  life  are  fully  described,  but  never 
so  as  to  become  wearisome  and  always  in  connection  with  the 
main  action.  Battles  are  no  longer  pictured  in  set  formulas,  but 
with  due  regard  to  their  special  characteristics.  But  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  inner  life  is  always  the  chief  interest  with 
Harimann.  While  'Ereck'  still  showed  at  times  a  want  of 
refinement,  'Iwein,'  on  the  contrary,  is  a  model  of  good 
taste  and  elegance.  Again,  while  in  '  Ereck '  the  diction  is 
rough  and  unequal,  in  '  Iwein '  the  language  has  attained  the 
highest  level  of  perfection,  and  readily  fulfils  all  that  the  poet 


Ch.  vi.]  Hartmann  vonAue  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg.  157 

demands  of  it.  The  narrative  is  smooth  and  flowing,  and  all 
exaggeration  is  avoided.  '  How  clear  and  pure,'  exclaims  a  con- 
temporary of  Hartmann's,  '  are  his  crystal  words.  Gently  they 
approach  you  and  glide  into  your  soul.' 

This  contemporary  was  Gottfried  von  Strassburg,  the  author 
of  the  famous  epic  poem  '  Tristan  and  Isolde.'     His     Gottfried 
admiration  of  Hartmann  betrays  itself  repeatedly  in  von  strass- 
his  own  poems,   for  he  emulates  him  and  tries  to        burg- 
excel    him.      But   where    Hartmann    hit   on   the   right   medium, 
Gottfried  exaggerated,  and  what  with  Hartmann  is  perfection  of 
style  becomes  with  Gottfried  mannerism. 

Gottfried  was  a  man  of  genius  and  a  great  artist,  but  he  was 
a  virtuoso  in  style,  and  carried  polish  and  elegance  character- 
to  extremes ;  he  exaggerated  intellectual  subtlety,  and  istics  of  his 
delighted  in  antithesis  and  conceits  of  language.  His  poetry, 
sense  of  metrical  harmony  was  less  delicate  than  Hartmann's, 
and  his  periods,  admirable  as  they  are,  show  less  freedom  and 
more  effort  at  rounding  and  finish  than  the  easy-flowing  sentences 
of  his  predecessor.  He  had  all  Hartmann's  delicacy  without  his 
simplicity.  Gottfried  is  rhetorical,  and  overlays  his  narrative  with 
a  network  of  reflections.  He  is  fond  of  obtruding  his  own  per- 
sonality and  opinions  upon  his  readers,  and  he  strives  after 
originality.  He  seems  never  to  have  written  a  love-song  himself, 
and  he  mocks  at  the  trivial  laments  of  the  Minnesingers.  He 
declines  to  describe  a  festival  or  a  tournament,  because  it  has  been 
done  so  often  by  others,  but  he  gives  in  detail  the  best  manner 
of  dressing  a  hunted  stag,  because  this  was  something  new,  and  also 
gave  him  an  opportunity  for  displaying  his  knowledge  of  the 
technical  expressions  involved,  and  of  their  etymology.  He  is 
generally  careful  not  to  weary  us  with  the  description  of  garments 
and  outward  appearances,  but  yet  he  occasionally  goes  further  into 
these  details  than  the  author  of  '  Iwein '  and  further  than  the  rules 
of  epic  poetry  would  allow. 

Notwithstanding  Gottfried's  efforts  after  originality,  he  had  no 
other  artistic  means  at  his  disposal  than  those  which  he  had 
inherited  from  Hartmann  and  the  French  poets,  and  he  had  as 
little  power  as  Hartmann  of  inventing  a  story.  He  borrowed  his 


158  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  VI. 

'Tristan  and  Isolde'  from  a  French  poem,  which  he  followed 
French       almost  slavishly,  even  where  he   would  have   done 
source  of     better  to  differ  from  it.     The  actual  poem  which  he 
Gottfried's    made  use  of  is  lost,  and  we  only  know  it  from  abbre- 
viations.  Since  the  time  when  Eilhard  von  Oberge  had 
written  his  poem  of 'Tristan  and  Isolde'  after  a  French  model,  new 
poets  in  France  had  taken  up  the  story  afresh,  and  refined  its 
incidents.     Gottfried's  work  was  far  superior  to  Eilhard's,   with 
which  he  was  acquainted,  both  through  the  greater  perfection  of 
his  French  original  and  also  through  the  greater  perfection  of  his 
own  style.     No  French  treatment  of  the  story,  as  far  as  we  know, 
Superiority  nas  attained  to  the  artistic  perfection  of  Gottfried's 
of  Gottfried's  'Tristan;'  it  was  reserved  for  a  German  to  give  a 
poem.       classical  form  to  this  famous  mediaeval  legend,  which 
in  human  interest  and  life-like  characters  far  surpasses  the  Arthur- 
romances.      Gottfried's  refined  diction,  his  flowing  language  and 
rich  imagery,  were  admirably  adapted  for  the  description  of  an 
overpowering  passion  and  its  destructive  effect  on  character.     The 
irresistible  force  of  love  is  symbolised  in  the  legend  by  a  powerful 
love-potion.     While  German  heroic  poetry  of  the  twelfth  century 
freed  itself  as  much  as  possible  from  fabulous  elements,  the  Celtic 
stories  which  were  introduced  into  German  literature  from  France 
again  revived  a  whole  world  of  marvels.     The  enlightenment  of 
the  earlier  period  gave  place  to  a  romantic  delight  in  the  super- 
natural and  improbable.      By  means  of  a  magic  potion  Tristan 
Legend  of    becomes  for  ever  attached  to  Isolde.    The  love  which 
Tristan  and  thus  arises  is  an  overruling  passion,  triumphing  over 
Isolde.       tne  greatest  difficulties,  and  asserting  itself  in  defence 
of  right  and  law.     It  leads  to  deceit  and  immorality,  and  yet  from 
a  certain  point  of  view  it  is  a  moral  power,  for  though  an  egoistic 
passion  it  yet  goes  contrary  to  egoism.     Such  a  passion  makes 
a  man  endure  all  the  agonies  of  longing  and  the  most  terrible 
dangers  without  flinching,  and  developes  in  him  all  the  energy  of 
devotion  and  self-sacrifice.     It  makes  him  bad,  but  never  vulgar. 
But  love  is  not  the  exclusive  theme  of  the  legend  or  of  Gottfried's 
poem ;  it  also  presents  us  with  a  glorious  picture  of  chivalry  in  its 
first  bloom.     The  hero  first  appears  at  the  court  of  his  uncle  Mark 


Ch.  v  I .]  Hart  mat  in  von  A  ue  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg.  159 

in  Cornwall  as  a  charming  clever  boy,  who  wins  all  hearts.  He 
has  perfect  manners,  and  is  an  excellent  chessplayer,  huntsman, 
musician,  and  poet.  In  a  word,  he  is  '  hofisch'  (chivalrous)  through 
and  through.  After  being  dubbed  a  knight  by  Mark,  he  avenges 
his  father's  death  on  Morgan  of  Brittany.  He  then  conquers 
Morold  of  Ireland,  and  thus  frees  Cornwall  from  a  humiliating 
poll-tax.  He  kills  a  dragon  in  Ireland,  makes  peace  between  that 
country  and  Cornwall,  and  wins  the  Irish  Princess  Isolde  the  Fair 
for  his  uncle.  But  on  board  the  vessel  which  is  conducting  the  bride 
to  her  future  home,  Tristan  and  Isolde,  through  an  unfortunate 
accident,  drink  the  love-potion  meant  for  Isolde  and  Mark.  The 
mischief  cannot  be  counteracted,  and  their  passionate  love  makes 
them  faithless  to  Mark,  and  gradually  corrupts  all  who  are  con- 
nected with  them.  Tristan  flies  to  the  continent,  enters  military 
service,  becomes  acquainted  with  a  second  Isolde,  Isolde  the  White- 
handed,  and  marries  her ;  but  he  cannot  forget  the  fair  Queen  of 
Cornwall,  he  visits  her  again  and  so  makes  the  second  Isolde 
miserable.  Being  wounded  in  some  adventure  he  secretly  sum- 
mons his  beloved  to  come  and  cure  him.  But  his  plans  are 
frustrated  by  Isolde  the  Whitehanded,  and  Mark's  wife  dies  on 
Tristan's  dead  body. 

This  is  the  complete  story,  but  Gottfried's  poem  breaks  off 
suddenly  in  the  midst  of  the  sophistic  monologue  in  which  Tristan 
resolves  to  marry  ;  the  completion  of  the  work  is  said  to  have 
been  prevented  by  the  poet's  death,  about  the  year  1210. 

The  original  intention  of  the  legend  seems  to  have  been  to 
show  how  noble  knighthood  may  be  ruined  by  passion ;  but  Gott- 
fried  von   Strassburg   and    his    predecessors   did    not    give   this 
interpretation  to  the  story.     The  German  poet  selected  the  theme 
with  a  distinct  object.     In  all  probability  he  was  not    Q.0ttfried'a 
a  nobleman  by  birth,  but  wished  to  make  himself  reasons  for 
appear  as  aristocratic  as  possible.     He  must  have  choosing  this 
received  a  careful  education,  for  he  borrows  from  the 
classical  writers,  especially  from  Ovid,  who  has  written  so  much  of  love, 
and  when  he  takes  a  very  high  flight  he  introduces  classical  mytho- 
logy.   He  is  well  acquainted  with  French,  but  he  parades  his  know- 
ledge of  it  till  it  becomes  wearisome,  and  even  goes  so  far  as  to 


160  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.vi. 

speak  of  his  fatherland  only  as  Allemagne,  'Almanje.'  He  adopts 
as  gospel  the  easy-going,  tolerant  view  of  life  held  by  the  nobility, 
defending  it  with  the  inexorable  logic  of  a  fanatical  apostle,  and 
actually  declaring  that  without  love  no  one  can  possess  either 
virtue  or  honour.  He  recognises  no  bounds  for  the  desires  of 
men,  except  the  public  opinion  of  refined  society,  which  for  its 
part  allows  everything  that  does  not  create  a  painful  sensation. 
There  is  no  hint  of  any  higher  code  of  morals  than  this.  Hart- 
mann  had  already  spoken  of  the  gallantry  of  God,  which  makes 
him  grant  the  requests  of  beautiful  women;  but  Gottfried's  God 
even  helps  Isolde  the  Fair,  in  deceiving  her  husband,  and  in 
falsifying  the  ordeal  by  Divine  judgment  Gottfried  is  not  content 
with  describing  passion  faithfully,  but  he  takes  the  part  of  the 
guilty  lovers  against  the  outwitted  King  Mark.  All  charms  are 
heaped  upon  Tristan  and  Isolde,  and  the  King  is  made  to  appear 
mean  and  contemptible  in  various  ways. 

The  fact  that  the  author  is  evidently  writing  with  a  purpose  in 

Defects  of    yiew>  i-e-  that  of  defending  the  chivalrous  philosophy 

Gottfried's  of  life  even  in  its  utmost  extremes,  introduces  an  ele- 
poem.  ment  of  stiffness  into  this  otherwise  sensational  narra- 
tive. Moreover  the  author  cannot  free  himself  from  that  tendency 
to  personify  abstract  qualities,  which  is  one  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  chivalrous  epics,  and  this  tendency  often  betrays  him  into 
artificial  conceits.  For  instance,  Tristan  is  armed  for  the  fight,  not 
like  Aeneas,  by  Vulcan,  but  by  Magnanimity,  Goodness,  Reason, 
and  Culture.  Again,  in  describing  the  woody  Grotto  of  Love  where 
Tristan  and  Isolde  live  for  a  time  in  banishment,  Gottfried  not 
only  paints  each  detail,  but  makes  each  bear  some  reference  to 
love  ;  in  this  he  resembles  the  mediaeval  commentators  on  the 

Bible,  who  not  only  took  the  words  of  the  text  literally,  but  also 

gave  them  an  allegorical  meaning. 

In  his  attitude  towards  questions  of  literary  art  too,  Gottfried 
.   .,     appears  as  a  conscious  theorist,  who  wishes  to  enforce 

criticisms  of  his  opinions.     In  one  often-mentioned  passage  of  his 

his  contem-  poem  he  drops  the  thread  of  his  narrative  to  enter 
poranes.      Qn  an  argument  w|ih  his  poetical  contemporaries,  and 

set  forih  his  own  principles  of  art ;  he  is  describing  the  ceremony  of 


Ch.  vi.]  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach.  161 

dubbing  Tristan  a  knight,  when  he  suddenly  stops  to  declare  that 
he  does  not  mean  to  emulate  his  predecessors  in  the  description 
of  the  feast,  and  then  goes  on  to  speak  not  only  of  the  epic  poets 
who  preceded  him,  but  also  of  the  lyric  poets,  who  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  matter.  The  characteristic  sketches  which  he 
draws  of  them  are  certainly  most  brilliant,  and  furnish  Q0ttfrje(j's 
the  finest  examples  of  the  intellectual  acuteness  and  criticism  of 

delicate   touches  which   could   at   that  time   be  ap-    contempo- 
,.,.,.,  ...  TT  .  .  ,       ,     .          rary  poets, 

plied  m  literary  criticism.  He  mentions  with  admira- 
tion Hartmann  von  Aue,  Blicker  von  Steinach,  (only  known  to 
us  by  a  couple  of  songs,)  Heinrich  von  Veldeke,  Reinmar  von 
Hagenau  and  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
speaks  in  terms  of  the  strongest  disapproval  of  an  unnamed  writer, 
whom  he  compares  to  a  conjuror  or  a  juggler,  a  man  who  seeks 
out  dark  sayings,  and  who  ought  to  send  out  an  interpreter  with 
each  of  his  tales.  Gottfried,  for  his  part,  will  only  adjudge  poetic 
laurels  to  the  writer  whose  diction  is  smooth  as  a  level  plain,  which 
a  man  of  simple  understanding  can  traverse  without  stumbling. 

This  unnamed  writer  was,  doubtless,  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach, 
and  it  does  not  surprise  us  that  Gottfried  should  have  disapproved 
of  him.  While  the  four  epic  poets,  Eilhard  von  Oberge,  Heinrich 
von  Veldeke,  Hartmann  von  Aue,  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg 
form  a  complete  series,  embracing  the  four  decades  from  1170  to 
1210,  and  marking  a  constant  progress  towards  clearness  and 
grace  of  diction,  Wolfram  stands  quite  apart  from  them — a  man 
with  a  totally  different  ideal  of  life  and  art,  and  with  a  breadth  and 
depih  of  insight  far  beyond  anything  which  Gottfried  could  con- 
ceive. 

WOLFRAM  VON  ESCHENBACH. 

The  sentence  passed  by  Gottfried  on  Wolfram  did  not  express 
the  general  opinion  of  the  time,  nor  does  it  correspond  with  the 
verdict  of  posterity.  Wolfram  was,  without  doubt,  the  greatest 
German  poet  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  was  also  recognised  as  such. 
'  No  lay-mouth  ever  spake  better,'  said  a  poet  of  the  time,  who 
gazed  with  wonder  on  the  rising  star  of  Wolfram's  genius,  and  suc- 
ceeding centuries  concurred  in  his  judgment.  According  to  the 

M 


1 62  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

opinion  of  his  countrymen  Wolfram  surpassed  all  secular  writers, 
and  was  only  inferior  to  the  Bible  and  to  the  great  religious 
teachers.  And  indeed,  he  seems  distinguished  from  all  other 
writers,  for  all  that  he  says  bears  the  stamp  of  a  marked  indivi- 
duality. Still,  many  of  the  characteristics  of  his  writing  may  be 
traced  to  older  sources. 

Wolfram  came  from  Bavaria,  and,  true  to  the  literary  tradition 

of  this  country,  he  united  in  himself  chivalrous  and 
General 
character-    popular,  secular  and  clerical  elements.     While  Hart- 

istics  of      mann  sought  to  keep  as  far  as  possible  from   the 
•Wolframs    gt  je  Qf  tne  natjonai  epics,  and  thus  became  more 
writing. 

and  more  careful  in  the  choice  of  his  words,  more  and 

more  rigid  in  his  diction,  Wolfram,  on  the  contrary,  adhered  in 
many  respects  to  the  older  popular  manner.  He  was  probably 
about  the  same  age  as  Hartmann,  though  he  made  his  first  attempt 
in  epic  poetry  some  ten  years  later.  He  may  have  already  formed 
his  taste  on  Eilhard,  Veldeke  and  celebrated  French  poets  like 
Chrestien  of  Troyes,  before  he  got  to  know  Hartmann's  '  Ereck.' 
He  refers  to  events  in  the  heroic  legends,  and  does  not  scorn  him- 
self to  adopt  the  naively  extravagant  manner  in  which  the  old 
songs  extolled  the  virtues  of  their  heroes.  He  possesses  the  gift 
of  humour,  and  succeeds  in  establishing  a  lively  sympathy  between 
himself  and  his  audience.  His  mastery  of  language  far  exceeds 
anything  attained  by  any  of  his  contemporaries,  but  he  exercises 
no  restraint  in  the  use  of  this  power ;  he  is  like  a  wild  torrent, 
which  will  not  flow  gently  or  tolerate  a  narrow  bed.  He  had  no 
regular  education,  being  unable  even  to  read  or  write,  and  he  did 
-  jiot  wish  himself  to  be  counted  among  the  poets.  '  I  was  born  to 
the  profession  of  arms,'  he  proudly  asserts.  His  rhymes  are  some- 
times bad,  his  style  bears  no  traces  of  artistic  rhetoric,  and  his 
syntax  is  simply  the  natural  flow  of  ordinary  speech.  His  melre 
is  too  confined  for  the  wealth  of  thoughts  which  crowd  in  upon 
him,  and  he  has  not  learned  to  disentangle  them  and  place  them 
clearly  before  the  reader.  But,  after  all,  the  striving  after  elegance 
and  refinement  too  often  crushes  natural  feeling,  and  Wolfram, 
while  indifferent  to  elegance,  had  the  courage  to  be  true  to  his  own 
feelings.  He  says  straight  out  what  he  thinks,  and  is  not  suupu- 


Ch.  vi.]  Wolfram  von  EscJienbach.  163 

lously  anxious  to  avoid  everything  which  could  offend  delicate  ears. 
He  teases  ladies  for  their  weaknesses,  where  others  only  worship 
them,  but  he  also  draws  them  true  to  life,  where  others  only  idealise. 
The  Bavarians  were,  according  to  the  opinion  of  the  Allemannic 
knights,  behindhand  in  the  customs  of  chivalry,  but  this  had  the 
advantage  of  making  them  feel  less  strongly  the  despotic  power  of 
etiquette.  In  the  works  of  the  Allemannic  poets,  Hartmann  and  Gott- 
fried, we  only  see  the  world  from  the  windows  of  an  elegant  draw- 
ing-room ;  when  reading  the  writings  of  the  Bavarian  Wolfram  we 
are  in  the  open  air,  in  the  woods  and  on  the  mountains.  Wolfram's 
poetry  is  the  more  real  of  the  two,  and  therefore  appeals  more  to 
our  sympathy. 

While  Hartmann  in  translating  Chrestien  of  Troyes  carefully 
omitted  all  touches  of  humour,  as  being  out  of  place,         His 
Wolfram,  on  the  contrary,  seems  to  have  adopted  the      humour, 
humorous  boldness  of  poets  like  Chrestien,  and  made  full  use  of 
it  to  suit  his  own  taste.     Good-natured  humour  is  always  at  his 
command,  and  he  often  makes  somewhat  outrageous  use  of  it  in 
his  desire  to  represent  things  clearly,  for,  like  Chrestien,  he  has  no 
sense  of  what  is  fitting  to  the  dignity  of  his  subject.     He  boldly 
compares  the  slender  figure  of  a  beautiful  lady  to  a  hare  stretched 
on  the  spit,  or  to  an  ant,  and  likens  the  hair  of  an  ugly  but 
learned  woman  to  the  bristles  on  a  pig's  back.     He  says  of  a 
knight  who  is  weeping  for  joy  :  '  His  eyes  would  be  of  no  good  as 
a  cistern,  for  they  did  not  hold  the  water.'     Here  he  borders  on 
bad  taste,  and  there  are  some  instances  even  worse  than  these. 
Like  Chrestien,  he  wishes  at  all  costs  to  pourtray  vividly,  and  he 
does  it  with  incomparable  freshness.     Wolfram  is  not     His  fre^. 
afraid,  like  Gottfried,  of  vicing  with  his  predecessors     ness  and 
in  the  description  of  tournaments,  combats  and  festi-    °rieinality. 
vals,  for  he  possesses  that  poetic  power  which  lends  a  new  charm 
to  what  has  been  heard  already  a  hundred  times.     Everything  in 
his  poetry  breathes,  acts,  moves ;  the  powers  of  the  mind,  the  forces 
of  nature,  and  even  lifeless  objects  assume  personality  and  action. 
Wolfram  prefers  to  draw  his  metaphors  and  similes  from  chivalrous 
life,  but  all  that  comes  within  his  horizon  also  serves  him  for  the 
purpose.     Wolfram  enters  more  into  details  than  Hartmann  and 

M  2 


1 64  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

Gottfried,  and  is,  in  consequence,  more  true  to  nature.  In  this 
respect  again  he  resembles  Chrestien,  while  he  differs  from 
Chrestien's  German  translator.  Wolfram  describes  in  full  the  vain 
endeavours  made  to  heal  the  wound  of  King  Amfortas,  and  for 
this  he  receives  a  disparaging  side-glance  from  Gottfried,  who 
observes,  in  describing  the  healing  of  Tristan,  that  he  does  not 
care  to  take  his  words  from  the  apothecary's  shop. 

Wolfram  is  not  purely  objective  as  an  epic  poet ;  his  works 
show  us  not  only  the  puppets,  but  the  mind  which  is  guiding  them. 
Still,  it  is  not  often  that  he  speaks  in  his  own  person ;  as  a  rule,  we 
see  through  the  eyes  of  his  heroes,  and  feel  what  they  feel.  We 
gain  an  idea  of  the  scenery  from  their  speeches  and  actions,  and  it 
is  mostly  by  what  they  say  and  do  that  their  characters  are  made 
known  to  us.  We  soon  see  that  the  poet  does  not  bind  himself  to 
any  fixed  method  of  narration,  but  is  guided  everywhere  by  his 
natural  tact,  and,  at  least  in  the  years  of  his  mature  power,  he 
never  becomes  diffuse,  or  wearisome. 

Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  is  the  last  great  poet  in  universal 
His  illite-  literature  who  was  without  the  elements  of  literary 

rateness.  culture,  and  he  is,  perhaps,  the  only  one  with  whom 
this  defect  was  not  due  to  the  general  condition  of  education  at  the 
time.  Like  the  popular  poets,  who  developed  their  memories  to 
such  perfection  that  they  could  easily  remember  several  thousand 
verses,  Wolfram  treasured  up  in  his  memory,  as  material  on  which 
to  exercise  his  art,  all  such  learning  in  the  way  of  poetry,  theology, 
astronomy,  geography,  and  natural  history  as  was  accessible  in  his 
age  to  a  layman,  who  only  knew  German  and  a  little  French.  His 
poetry  also  reveals  much  tender  observation  of  the  life  around  him, 
— chivalrous,  sporting,  social,  or  domestic. 

Instead  01  reading  and  writing,  Wolfram  had  to  be  read  to  and 
to  dictate.  But  his  very  illiterateness  gave  him  an  incomparable  force 
and  independence.  Reading  always  lays  certain  shackles  on  the 
imagination,  and,  moreover,  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  clergy  were  the 
only  teachers  Oi  the  art.  Wolfram,  never  having  gone  through  this 
training,  retained  his  natural  independence  of  mind.  He  bears  no 
traces  of  clerical  instruction,  and  his  soul  was  never  confined  by  a 
strait  jacket 


Ch.  vi.]  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach.  165 

Wolfram's  epics  contain  more  of  his  own  experiences  than  Hart- 
mann's  do  of  his.  His  native  place,  Eschenbach, 
was  in  the  northern  province  of  Bavaria,  south-east 
of  Ansbach,  and  close  to  it  lay  Abenberg,  Wassertriidingen,  Nord- 
lingen  and  Dollnstein,  all  of  them  places  mentioned  in  his  poems, 
and  well  known  at  the  present  day.  He  was  often  hospitably  enter- 
tained at  the  castle  of  Heitstein  in  the  Bavarian  Forest,  and  he 
sings  the  praises  of  its  mistress,  the  Margravine  of  Vohburg,  sister  of 
Duke  Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  who  lived  there  till  1204.  He  paid  long 
and  frequent  visits  to  the  Landgrave  Hermann  of  Thuringia,  whom 
he  likewise  sometimes  mentions  in  his  works.  But  his  home  was 
at  Wildenberg,  probably  what  is  now  Wehlenberg,  near  Ansbach. 
There  he  lived  with  his  wife  and  child  in  humble  circumstances, 
which,  however,  did  not  embitter  him,  as  is  shown  by  his  frequent 
jests  at  his  poverty. 

Those  of  his  songs  which  we  possess  are  sometimes  hopeful, 
sometimes  impatient  in  tone.  In  others,  which  have  been  lost,  we 
know  that  he  gave  vent  to  his  anger  with  an  unfaithful  woman,  for 
he  acknowledges,  in  a  later  poem,  that  he  went  too  far  in  his  re- 
proaches, though  even  then  he  does  not  lay  aside  all  bitterness. 
He  wrote  four  ballad-like  poems,  belonging  to  the  -wolfram's 
class  called  'Tagelieder,'  or  'Tageweisen'  poems,  which  'Tageiieder.' 
described  the  parting  of  two  lovers  in  the  morning,  such  as  Shak- 
speare  represents  in  his  '  Rorneo  and  Juliet.'  These  '  Tagelieder ' 
were  suggested  by  the  watchman's  songs,  so  common  in  Provengal 
poetry.  In  these  songs  the  watchman  announces  the  dawn,  and 
warns  the  lovers  to  part ;  thus  an  occasion  is  afforded  to  the  poet  of 
describing  passionate  attachment  intensified  by  the  pain  of  parting. 
In  Germany,  these  songs  at  first  assumed  the  somewhat  conventional 
form  of  a  duet  between  the  lovers.  Wolfram  followed  the  Proven9J.l 
form  more  closely ;  he  retained  the  character  of  the  watchman,  and 
infused  into  these  songs  such  a  glow  of  passion,  such  truth  and 
earnestness,  that  he  stands  forth  as  the  greatest  master  in  this  kind 
of  poetry.  But  there  is  one  poem  in  which,  instead  of  telling  the 
tale  of  illicit  love,  he  praises  the  happiness  of  marriage ;  perhaps 
this  song  was  written  at  the  time  when  he  founded  his  own 
household. 


1 66  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  Vf. 

Wolfram,  like  Gottfried  von  Strassburg,  knew  and  loved  gay 
secular  life,  but  he  was  not  wholly  given  up  to  it,  and  did  not  think 
it  the  summit  of  all  happiness ;  nor  was  his  soul,  like  Hartmann 
von  Aue's,  divided  into  a  worldly  and  a  spiritual  portion,  which 
existed  side  by  side  in  seldom  disturbed  tranquillity.  Wolfram 
was  convinced  of  the  insufficiency  of  worldly  wisdom,  and  sought 
the  eternal  beyond  the  temporal.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  by  no 
means  an  ascetic  after  the  church's  own  heart,  for  he  had  his  own 
independent  opinions,  though  his  nature  was  deeply  religious.  His 
'Parzival'  two  great  epics,  'Parzival'  and  '  Willehalm,'  both 
and'Wille-  have  a  religious  vein  running  through  them.  In 
halm.'  <  Parzival,'  Wolfram  borrowed  from  French  poems  of 
Celtic  origin,  while  '  Willehalm '  is  derived  from  French  national 
poetry.  'Parzival'  contains  supernatural  elements,  such  as  we 
noticed  in  the  Arthur-legends  and  in  '  Tristan,'  while  '  Willehalm,' 
on  the  contrary,  has  an  historical  basis.  Both  poems  treat  of  the 
relations  between  Christians  and  heathens,  and  besides  this, '  Par- 
zival '  contains  still  deeper  religious  ideas  of  a  distinctly  original 
character. 

The  poem  of '  Parzival '  presents  to  us  a  Christian  and  a  heathen 

Tolerant     as  brothers.     In  the  story  of  the  life  of  Parzival's 

views  ex-     father,  Gahmuret,  we  are  introduced  to  a  state  of  things 

pressed  in    jn  which  Christians  and  heathens  have  learnt  to  toler- 

'  Parzival '  «_       i 

ate,  and  even  to  esteem  and  respect  each  other,  as  was 
really  the  case  in  Spain ;  heathens  of  rank  speak  French,  chivalry 
and  homage  to  women  reign  as  in  the  West,  and  knightly  service 
forms  a  link  between  the  two  different  religions.  Gahmuret,  a 
Christian  prince  of  Anjou,  is  in  the  service  of  the  caliph  of  Bagdad, 
the  heathen  pope,  as  Wolfram  explains.  He  becomes  famous 
among  the  Saracens,  and  is  not  ashamed  to  marry  a  Moorish  lady, 
Belakane,  whose  noble  and  pure  character  seems  to  him  to  make 
up  for  her  not  being  a  Christian.  But  seized  with  a  longing  for 
knightly  adventures,  he  soon  afterwards  makes  the  difference  of 
religions  a  pretence  for  accusing  her  of  unfaithfulness.  He  for- 
sakes her,  wins  the  hand  of  Queen  Herzeloide  at  a  tournament  in 
the  land  of  Valois,  and  marries  her,  though  not  without  a  sense  of 
the  injustice  which  he  is  doing  to  his  heathen  wife.  His  duty  to 


ch.  vi.]  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach.  167 

the  caliph  calls  him  back  to  the  East,  and  he  falls  in  battle.  Par- 
zival  is  Herzeloide's  son  ;  but  Belakane  also  had  a  son,  Feirefiss  by 
name,  of  whose  existence  Parzival  learns  for  the  first  time  later  on, 
in  a  very  important  moment  of  his  life.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
poem  he  meets  this  brother  in  the  hardest  combat  which  he  has 
ever  fought.  Parzival's  sword  breaks  asunder,  and,  but  for  the  noble 
forbearance  of  the  heathen,  he  would  have  been  lost.  But  at  this 
point,  the  two  brothers  recognise  each  other,  and  Feirefiss  shows 
loyalty  equal  to  that  of  any  Christian,  though,  as  the  poet  remarks, 
it  was  through  Christ  that  loyalty  came  into  the  world.  Out  of  love 
to  a  Christian  woman  Feirefiss  is  at  length  baptized,  and  he  carries 
Christianity  to  India,  spreading  it  however  only  by  peaceable  means. 
These  relations  with  heathendom  form,  as  it  were,  a  framework 

to  the  story  of  Parzival,  but  the  central  point  of  interest 

,      TT   i     /-•     -i  1-11         i     i     r          The  Grail, 

in  the  poem  is  the  Holy  Grail,  on  which  the  whole  fate 

of  the  hero  depends.  The  Grail  is  an  object  of  ancient  legend 
transformed  into  a  religious  symbol.  The  word  '  Grail '  (Latin 
Gradalis)  originally  signified  a  large,  deep  dish,  with  several  divisions, 
in  which  various  sorts  of  food  could  be  served  up  at  once.  The 
Grail  of  the  legend  was  originally  a  kind  of  magic  dish,  which  offered 
at  all  times  an  excellent  meal.  According  to  a  religious  version  of 
the  story,  the  Grail  is  said  to  have  served  as  a  dish  at  the  Lord's 
Supper,  and  then  to  have  been  used  by  Joseph  of  Arimathea  to  catch 
the  blood  from  the  Saviour's  side.  With  Wolfram,  the  Grail  is  made 
of  one  precious  stone  which,  like  the  black  stone  of  the  Kaaba  at 
Mecca,  originally  fell  from  Heaven.  At  first  the  angels  watched  and 
guarded  it ;  afterwards,  the  care  of  it  was  transferred  to  a  religious 
order  of  knights,  the  '  Templeisen.'  It  is  a  symbol  of  salvation  and  of 
eternal  life ;  whoever  sees  it  cannot  die,  and  remains  always  young. 
The  place  where  it  is  kept  is  called  'Munsalvasche'  (mont  sauvage) 
in  Wolfram's  poem,  originally,  perhaps,  Mons  Salvationis, '  mountain 
of  salvation.'  No  man  can,  by  his  own  power,  penetrate  into  the  dis- 
trict that  surrounds  this  mountain.  Those  who  may  serve  the  Grail 
are  called  by  a  summons  which  appears  in  writing  on  the  vessel  itself. 
Those  who  are  chosen  must  renounce  earthly  love,  for  its  king  alone 
may  be  wedded,  whose  rule  extends  over  the  whole  earth.  The 
brotherhood  of  the  Grail  comprises  men  and  women,  knights  and 


1 68  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  \_Ch.  vi. 

squires,  priests  and  laymen.  They  need  take  no  thought  of  what  they 
shall  eat  and  drink,  for  the  Grail  yields  sustenance  for  all. 

Thus  the  Grail  gathers  around  itself  a  brotherhood  unprejudiced 
against  the  Church,  but  still  independent  of  it.  The  idea  is  clearly 
that  of  an  order  of  knighthood,  and  the  '  Templeisen '  of  the  poem 
were  suggested  by  the  Knights  Templars,  though,  of  course,  those 
knights  were  not  surrounded  by  so  much  mystery,  nor  was  their 
superior  an  earthly  sovereign.  The  Knights  of  the  Grail,  such  as  Wol- 
fram represented  them,  could  have  no  exact  counterpart  in  real  life. 

Parzival  is  destined  to  the  dignity  of  becoming  the  sovereign  of 
this  chosen  order.  He  at  last  finds  salvation,  although 

Difference    ^e  ^ag  ^een  cm\\ty  of  many  sins,  for  these  sins  have 
between  J 

"Wolfram's    been  committed  in  ignorance,  like  those  of  Saint  Gre- 

and  gory  in  Hartmann's  poem.  But  while  Gregory  atones 
iann  s  for  ^jg  faujt  ^  undergoing  a  long  course  of  penance 
prescribed  by  religion,  Parzival's  purification,  on  the 
contrary,  is  accomplished  simply  by  a  change  of  disposition,  with- 
out the  services  of  religion.  But  there  is  a  still  greater  difference 
than  this  between  the  attitude  of  the  two  poets.  Hartmann  von 
Aue  says  in  the  prologue  to  his  '  Gregory,'  that  there  is  only  one 
sin  which  cannot  be  put  away  by  repentance,  namely,  unbelief  and 
doubt,  which  inevitably  lead  to  damnation.  Wolfram's  epic,  on  the 
contrary,  begins  with  the  assertion  that  doubt  does  indeed  hurt  the 
soul,  but  that  if  the  doubter  be  of  undaunted  courage,  he  may  still 
attain  salvation ;  heaven  and  hell  both  have  hold  over  such  an  one, 
and  it  depends  on  himself  alone  whether  he  will  rescue  his  soul. 
Only  wavering  and  weakness  of  character  lead  necessarily  to  eternal 
death,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  steadfast  endeavour  must  secure 
salvation.  We  have  here  the  leading  idea  of  Wolfram's  poem. 
Like  Goethe,  in  '  Faust,'  he  gives  a  secular  answer  to  the  question : 
who  can  be  saved  ?  Goethe  says  :  '  He  who  continually  aspires  and 
strives'  ('  Wer  immer  strebend  sich  bemilht.')  Wolfram  says : 
'The  steadfast  and  true  man'  ('Der  Stete  und  der  Treue.')  These 
two  answers  sound  different,  but  they  are  really  closely  akin. 
Faithfulness  to  his  wife  and  to  the  Grail,  steadfast  striving  to 
realise  his  ideal  in  public  and  private  life,  combined  with  recovered 
trust  in  God,  constitute  Parzival's  saving  faith. 


Ch.  vi.]  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach.  169 

Wolfram's  Parzival  passes  through  darkness  and  despair,  and 
finally  rises  chastened  to  the  highest  level  of  per-  story  of 
fection.  His  mother,  wishing  to  withdraw  her  son  'Parzival.' 
from  his  natural  career,  lets  him  grow  up  in  the  solitude  of  a  wood, 
without  any  knowledge  of  knighthood  ;  but  a  chance  meeting  with 
some  knights,  and  their  reference  to  King  Arthur,  is  enough  to 
make  Parzival's  chivalrous  bent  declare  itself.  He  goes  out  into 
the  world,  and  breaks  his  mother's  heart,  for  she  dies  the  moment 
that  he  vanishes  from  her  sight.  Unaware  that  he  is  guilty  of  having 
caused  his  mother's  death,  Parzival  enters  with  boldness  and  self- 
reliance  on  his  new  life.  He  is  dressed  in  motley,  and  following  too 
literally  the  precepts  given  him  by  his  mother,  he  excites  the  ridicule 
of  those  whom  he  meets,  but  soon  proves  himself  a  dangerous  oppo- 
nent. He  next  arrives  at  Arthur's  court.  Ignorant  of  his  kith  and 
kin,  and  unacquainted  with  the  laws  of  knightly  honour,  he  kills 
one  of  his  relations,  and  then  plunders  the  body.  From  the  knight 
Gurnemanz  he  learns,  for  the  first  time,  what  is  becoming  for  a 
knight  in  fighting  and  in  peace,  and  amongst  other  things,  Gurne- 
manz warns  him  against  useless  questions.  After  this,  Parzival  comes 
to  the  rescue  of  Queen  Condwiramurs  of  Pelrapeire,  and  makes 
her  his  wife.  He  leaves  her,  however,  to  go  and  seek  adventures, 
wishing  also  to  find  his  mother  again.  He  comes  to  the  mountain 
of  the  Grail,  where  he  is  splendidly  entertained.  He  sees  there  much 
that  is  strange  and  magnificent :  the  King  Amfortas  lying  on  a 
sick-bed,  a  bleeding  lance  brought  in,  at  the  sight  of  which  all 
break  into  lamentations.  He  receives  a  present  of  a  sword  from 
Amfortas,  accompanied  by  an  allusion  to  the  King's  misfortune, 
yet  he  does  not  ask  the  meaning  of  what  he  sees,  and  has  no  en- 
quiry of  sympathy  for  his  kind  host.  His  natural  warm-heartedness 
has  been  crushed  by  the  conventional  precepts  of  propriety  incul- 
cated by  the  knight  Gurnemanz,  precepts  which,  in  his  innocence, 
he  follows  as  literally  as  he  had  formerly  followed  the  instructions 
of  his  mother.  Parzival's  conduct  is  a  satire  on  knightly  breeding 
and  knightly  manners,  designed  to  show  their  inadequacy.  The 
simple  enquiry  of  human  sympathy,  which  was  expected  from 
him,  would,  according  to  the  decree  of  the  Grail,  have  cured  Am- 
fortas and  have  rewarded  the  enquirer  with  the  sovereignty  of  the 


17°  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  vi. 

Grail ;  but  instead  of  this  he  quits  the  caslle  in  disgrace.  And  just 
as  Arthur  has  received  him  as  a  member  of  the  Round  Table,  and 
his  secular  knighthood  has  thus  attained  its  highest  glory,  the  mes- 
senger of  the  Grail  appears  and  rebukes  him  for  his  fault.  Parzival, 
however,  repudiates  the  charge,  and  stung  by  this  open  disgrace  he 
renounces  his  allegiance  to  God ;  for,  he  argues,  if  there  were  a 
divine  power,  it  would  not  have  let  this  shame  come  upon  him. 
God  may  punish  him,  if  it  pleases  Him  !  Henceforth  the  thought 
of  his  wife  alone  shall  inspire  him  in  the  battle,  for  from  God  he 
expects  no  further  help.  He  seeks  the  Grail,  and  longs  to  see  it 
again  and  win  it.  For  five  years  he  thus  wanders  about,  till  on  a 
Good  Friday  he  meets  a  pilgrim-knight,  who  bids  him  examine  him- 
self, and  directs  him  to  a  pious  layman,  the  hermit  Trevrizent,  who 
first  enlightens  him  about  the  true  nature  of  God  and  the  nature  of 
the  Grail.  From  Trevrizent  the  hero  learns  humility  and  submission 
to  the  dispensations  of  Providence.  He  is  freed  from  the  burden 
of  his  sins,  and  leaves  the  hermit  as  an  altered  man.  Trust  in  God 
henceforth  guides  all  his  actions.  His  fight  with  Gawan  symbo- 
lises the  triumph  of  the  higher  spiritual  chivalry  over  mere  secular 
knighthood.  He  is  now  summoned  to  the  Grail,  makes  the  en- 
quiry which  he  had  formerly  neglected,  enters  on  the  sovereignty, 
and  is  again  united  to  Condwiramurs  and  his  two  sons. 

The  story,  at  least  in  its  later  parts,  has  really  two  heroes,  though 
we  are  made  to  feel  throughout  that  Parzival  is  the  chief  hero. 
When  he  is  withdrawn  from  our  eyes,  to  sojourn  for  a  time  with 
the  knight  Trevrizent,  the  stage  is  occupied  by  another  figure,  the 
knight  Gawan,  the  type  of  secular  chivalry,  whose  adventures  for  a 
lime  absorb  the  poet's  attention. 

It  is  only  by  the  introduction  of  Gawan  that  the  poem  becomes 

„    .      .      a  complete  picture  of  chivalrous  life.     The  contrast 
Contrast 

between  between  children  of  God  and  children  of  the  world 
Parzival  js  typified  in  Parzival  and  Gawan.  Parzival  is  serious, 
and  Qawan.  ^^  Gawan  is  frivolous  ;  Parzival  is  faithful  to  his 
wife,  while  Gawan  passes  quickly  from  one  love  to  another. 
Around  Parzival  are  grouped  serious  characters,  like  Gurnemanz, 
the  pilgrim-knight,  and  Trevrizent,  faithful  and  pure  women,  like  his 
devoted  mother,  Herzeloide,  his  fair  cousin,  Sigune,  and  his  loving 


Ch.  vi.]  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach.  171 

wife,  Condwiramurs.  Gawan,  on  the  contrary,  is  not  only  sur- 
rounded by  all  the  legendary  marvels  of  the  Arthur  romances, 
but  is  also  the  centre  of  a  purely  worldly  and  somewhat  question- 
able society ;  his  companions,  however,  like  himself,  pass  through 
a  kind  of  purification.  The  women  with  whom  he  associates, — the 
charming  young  girl  Obilot,  the  coy  Obie,  who  is  at  length  con- 
quered by  love,  the  strong-charactered  Antikonie,  the  alluring 
coquette  Orgeluse,  the  enthusiastic  and  emotional  Itonie,  Gawan's 
sister, — all  of  them  represent  the  conventional  requirements  of 
society  with  regard  to  women;  at  the  same  time,  the  poet's  respect  for 
women  keeps  him  from  making  any  of  these  characters  unpleasing. 
Parzival  and  his  friends  on  the  one  hand,  and  Gawan  and  his 
associates  on  the  other,  represent  two  hemispheres  of  the  world  of 
chivalry,  a  higher  and  a  lower  form  of  knighthood.  The  Arthur- 
romances  and  '  Tristan '  only  show  us  one  of  these  hemispheres,  but 
Wolfram  introduces  both,  and  fills  each  with  a  succession  of 
characteristic  figures,  far  removed  from  the  vague  ideals  of  a 
Hartmann  von  Aue.  But  Parzival  and  Gawan  are  friends,  and 
although  the  poet  gives  the  palm  to  the  former,  yet  he  has  no 
intention  of  condemning  the  latter.  He  may  have  found  the 
material  for  both  in  his  own  breast.  He  distinguishes  between 
a  higher  and  a  lower  knighthood,  but  knighthood  in  general  is 
to  him  the  only  form  of  life  worth  living. 

In  '  Parzival '  an  illiterate  German  has  immortalized  the  deepest 
ideas   of  European  chivalry.     Wolfram's   '  Parzival/    -w0ifram»s 
like  Gottfried's  '  Tristan,'  is  the  classical  form  of  the   poem  com- 

story  in  mediaeval  literature.     And  Wolfram  counted   pared  with 
,  .  ,  ,  f.  ,  ,  ,         Chrestien's. 

among   his  predecessors  in  the  same  field  no  less 

a  man  than  Chrestien  of  Troyes.  The  French  poet  had  told 
Parzival's  story  as  far  as  his  sojourn  with  Trevrizent,  and  had 
described  Gawan's  adventures  down  to  a  short  time  before  the 
combat  with  Parzival,  had  told  them  too  in  the  same  order,  and 
with  so  much  similarity,  on  the  whole,  that  we  cannot  help  thinking 
that  Wolfram  must  have  been  acquainted  with  Chrestien's  romance, 
in  some  form  or  other. 

But  Chrestien's  '  Perceval '  is,  perhaps,  his  weakest  work,  and  it 
is  probable  that  his  talents  were,  in  any  case,  not  adequate  to  the 


1 72  The  Epics  of  Chivalry,  [ch.  vi. 

subject.  Wolfram  is  superior  to  the  French  poet  in  all  points.  He 
surpasses  him  in  depth  of  thought  and  also  in  artistic  power. 
Wolfram  shows  much  more  skill  in  developing  and  connecting  the 
incidents  in  his  poem,  and  he  also  draws  his  characters  much  more 
sympathetically  than  Chrestien,  and  is  more  successful  in  gaining 
our  sympathy  for  them.  The  Grail  too  gains  much  more  signi- 
ficance in  Wolfram's  treatment  of  it ;  Wolfram  alone  makes  it 
clear  to  us  that  Parzival  has  neglected  an  enquiry  of  sympathy, 
that  his  feelings  of  humanity  were  appealed  to  in  vain.  Again,  how 
powerfully  Wolfram  depicts  the  sudden  breaking  in  of  evil  upon 
the  brilliant  circle  of  the  Round  Table !  How  clearly  he  brings 
before  us  the  condition  of  Parzival's  soul,  when  relapsing  into 
a  state  of  defiance  towards  God !  In  Chrestien's  poem,  on  the 
contrary  the  hero  merely  announces  his  intention  of  learning  what 
he  had  formerly  neglected  to  ask  concerning  the  Grail,  and  it  is 
only  afterwards  that  he  tells  the  hermit,  that  for  five  years  he  had 
neither  loved  God  nor  believed  in  Him.  The  hermit  gives  him, 
for  the  improvement  of  his  soul,  external  precepts  about  prayer  and 
attending  church,  in  strong  contrast  with  the  profound  and  serious 
considerations  which  Wolfram  puts  into  his  mouth  in  this  connec- 
tion. Wolfram  has  treated  the  story  with  the  free,  bold  hand  of  an 
artist,  filling  it  with  beauty  and  life.  He  is  a  true  painter  of 
humanity,  like  Shakspeare ;  a  poet  of  tolerance  and  reconciliation, 
like  Goethe. 

Wolfram  had  become  so  attached  to  the  characters  in  '  Parzival ' 
that  he  could  not  break  from  them.  He  was  especially  attracted 
by  the  character  of  Sigune,  the  youthful  widow,  whom  Parzival  meets 
on  his  first  sallying  forth  into  the  world,  and  who  appears  again 
at  several  momentous  periods  of  his  life,  instructing,  reproving,  and 
comforting,  and  is  at  length  found  by  Parzival  lying  dead  on  the 
coffin  of  the  man  she  loved.  As  Wolfram  had  painted  her  sorrow, 
so  he  also  wished  to  paint  her  love.  For  this  he  chose  a  form  closely 
akin  to  the  popular  ballad,  namely,  stanzas  describing  separate 
episodes,  interspersed  with  allusions  to  the  whole  story.  He  sought 
to  approximate  his  style  still  more  to  that  of  the  national  epics, 
borrowing  certain  characteristics  from  them  and  laying  aside  his 
jocularity. 


Ch.  vi.]  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach.  173 

These  songs  of  Wolfram  are  generally  called  '  Titurel,'  because 

the  first  begins  with  Titurel.  the  sovereign  of  the  Grail, 

,.    ,  r   0.  .    „       .     .       'Titurel.' 

and  the  great-grandfather   of  Sigune    and   Parzival. 

But  the  real  subject  even  of  this  first  song  is  the  childish  love  of 
Sigune  and  Schionatulander,  which  is  charmingly  pictured  in  con- 
versations between  the  t\vo  children,  imitating  the  speech  of  their 
elders,  and  in  their  confessions  to  their  trusted  teachers,  those  of 
Schionatulander  to  Gahmuret,  and  of  Sigune  to  Herzeloide.  Gah- 
muret  and  Herzeloide  approve  of  their  affections,  only  it  is  looked 
upon  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  young  hero  must  first  earn 
Sigune's  love  by  brave  deeds.  The  second  song  gives  us  the  story 
of  Sigune's  foolish  wish,  which  drove  her  lover  to  his  destruction. 
Schionatulander  has  caught  a  hunting-dog  in  the  wood,  but  it 
escapes  before  Sigune  can  finish  reading  the  inscription  on  his 
splendid  leash.  Schionatulander,  at  her  command,  must  pursue  the 
animal  through  bush  and  briar,  but  all  in  vain.  Then  he  is  sent  out 
again,  love  being  the  prize  of  his  success,  and  this,  as  the  poet  says, 
is  the  beginning  of  his  misfortunes.  He  loses  his  life  in  the  foolish 
quest,  and  Sigune  may  now  mourn  for  him  all  her  life  long.  The 
despotic  etiquette  of  that  time  avenges  itself  on  Sigune  as  on 
Parzival.  If  the  little  lady  believes  that  she  may  require  anything 
from  her  devoted  knight,  this  is  just  as  foolish  as  when  Parzival 
thinks  that  he  must  ask  no  questions.  While  Hartmann  von  Aue, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  anxious  to  bow  in  all  things  before  the  courtly 
ideal  of  propriety,  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  protests  against  it, 
here  and  in  '  Parzival,'  in  the  name  of  humanity.  Here  again,  the 
fact  that  Bavaria  was  backward  in  chivalrous  education  was  an 
advantage  to  him  as  a  poet. 

The    same   humane   sentiment   appears   in  Wolfram's   second 
important  work,  'Willehalm,'   and    here  again  it  is      'Wille- 
arrayed  on  the  side  of  religious  toleration.    Willehalm       halm.' 
i$  Saint  William,  Count  William  of  Aquitaine,  who,  in  the  year 
793,  fought  against  the  Saracens  between  Carcasonne  and  Nar- 
bonne,  and  though  defeated,  yet  succeeded  in  checking  the  advance 
of  the  enemy.     French  songs  celebrated  this  battle  and  the  life  of 
the  hero  with  many  legendary  adornments.     They  told   how  he 
carried  off  a  heathen  woman,  who  received  in  baptism  the  name 


174  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  vi. 

of  Giburg ;  how  he  fought  at  Aliscans  against  her  father  and  her 
former  husband ;  how  after  the  battle  he  sought  assistance  from 
King  Louis,  and  was  victorious  in  a  new  battle,  in  which  Renouart 
('  Rennewart'  in  Wolfram),  specially  distinguished  himself.  Renouart 
is  a  heathen  prince,  Willehalm's  brother-in-law,  who  has  lived 
undiscovered  at  the  royal  court  as  scullion,  and  who,  after  perform- 
ing valiant  deeds  in  this  battle  with  a  huge  bar  of  iron,  finally 
consents  to  be  baptized. 

We  possess  the  French  original  of  Wolfram's  story,  or  at  least 
a  poem  very  closely  related  to  it.  He  has  not  handled 
poem  on  ^  with  tne  same  freedom  and  success  as  he  did  the 
the  same  story  of  Parzival,  for  he  has  made  the  long  descriptions 
subject.  of  battle  stin  ionger)  an(j  the  diffuse  speeches  still  more 

diffuse ;  but  he  has  toned  down  barbaric  deeds  of  violence,  and 
has  moderated  the  all  too  martial  tone.  He  has  introduced  his 
tolerant  views  of  heathendom  into  a  legend  which  owed  its  fame  to 
religious  fanaticism,  and  into  a  poem  which  formed  a  pendant  to 
the  Chanson  de  Roland. 

In  '  Willehalm,'  as  in  '  Parzival/  we  see  Christians  and  heathens 
Story  of     bound  together  by  a  family  tie.    The  fair  heathen 
•Wiiie-      Giburg   is  the   cause   of  the   fight,   like   the  Greek 
halm.'       Helena.     Her  father,  her  former  heathen  husband, 
and  her  son  by  her  first  marriage,  are  all  opposed  in  the  field  to 
the  Christian  who  has  carried  her  off.     And  Giburg,  '  the  holy 
woman,'  as  the  poet  calls  her,  is  far  from  having  entirely  broken 
with   her   past   life.      She   acknowledges   that   Tybald,   her   first 
husband,  was  free  from  all  blemish,  and  she  exhorts  the  Christians 
to  spare  the  heathen,  who  are  God's  creatures  as  much  as  them- 
selves; all  heathens,  she   says,  cannot  be  damned,  for  were  not 
Adam,  Eve,  Noah  and  the  three  Magi  heathens  ?     Giburg  is  only 
expressing  Wolfram's  own  view  of  the  heathen.     He  thinks  it  a 
C  m  aris  n  £reat  s*n  to  slaughter  them  like  cattle,  for  they  have 
with  the      never    heard   of   Christianity.      Unlike    his   French 
French      original,  he  endeavours  throughout  to  represent  the 
heathen  in  a  noble  light,  and,  as  a  contrast  to  their 
ferocity   in    battle,  he    introduces    many   palliating   instances   of 
generosity  and  refinement.   In  the  French  poem,  Willehalm  answers 


Ch.  vi.]  Wolfram  -von  Eschenbach.  175 

an  insulting  speech  of  his  heathen  step-son  with  the  assertion  that 
all  heathens  are  dogs,  and  that  whoever  kills  one  of  them  destroys 
a  devil ;  Wolfram's  Willehalm,  on  the  contrary,  receives  the  taunting 
words  in  silence,  and  avoids  fighting  with  the  son  of  his  own  wife. 
In  Wolfram's  poem,  Giburg's  father  only  makes  war  on  his  daughter 
because  the  caliph  and  the  heathen  priests  require  it ;  he  would 
rather,  if  it  only  depended  on  him,  have  died  for  her. 

In  the  French  poem  the  heathen  Rennewart  is  a  greedy,  drunken, 
stupid  giant,  who  serves  as  a  butt  for  the  rough  jokes  of  his  com- 
rades, and  rewards  them  with  a  good  beating  in  return.  But 
Wolfram  draws  him  in  a  far  nobler  light,  and  if  he  had  not  done 
so  we  should  grudge  this  rough  warrior  the  charming  king's 
daughter,  who,  in  the  legend,  becomes  his  bride.  Many  other 
instances  might  be  quoted  in  which  Wolfram  has  improved  on 
the  French  poet. 

Love  plays  but  a  small  part  in  this  serious  poem,  but  Wolfram 
has  beautifully  represented  in  Willehalm  and  Giburg  the  faithful 
devotion  of  husband  and  wife.  There  is  one  especially  charming 
scene,  which  describes  how  Willehalm  returns  home  despairing  and 
exhausted  from  the  battle,  and  Giburg  takes  off  his  armour,  binds 
up  his  wounds,  and  grants  him  a  moment's  rest  in  her  arms ;  then 
he  lays  his  head  on  her  breast  and  falls  asleep,  while  she  gives 
herself  up  to  prayers  and  lamentations,  and  her  tears  flow  down  on 
the  sleeper's  face.  But  when  he  wakes,  he  speaks  words  of  comfort 
and  encouragement  to  her. 

In  '  Willehalm,'  as  in  '  Parzival,'  Wolfram  has  given  a  religious 
colouring  to  chivalry.  He  even  mentions  that  the  Christians  signed 
themselves  with  the  cross  before  the  battle,  an  incident  of  which 
there  is  no  trace  in  the  French  original.  There  is  a  great  resem- 
blance between  Wolfram's  '  Willehalm '  and  the  crusading  poems 
of  the  twelfth  century.  It  was  no  wonder  that  the  knights  of  the 
Teutonic  Order  esteemed  this  poem  more  than  any  other. 

The  poem  is  incomplete.     The  last  thing  narrated  is  how  Wille- 
halm provided  for  a  worthy  burial  to  the  fallen  heathen,     Death  of 
according  to  their  own  rites.     Soon  after  dictating    Woliram, 
Willehalm's  noble  words,  the  poet  himself  probably    oirca  122°- 
died.    Wolfram  is  thought  to  have  died  in  1220,  when  he  must  have 


176  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

been  close  upon  sixty  years  old.     In  '  Willehalm '  we  seem  to  trace 
a  failing  of  power.    He  probably  began  it  before  1216,  and  worked 
at '  Parzival '  chiefly  during  the  first  decade  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
Wolfram  was  buried  in  the  Frauenkirche  at  Eschenbach,  and 
"Wolfram's    as  late  as  the  year  1608,  a  citizen  of  Niirnberg,  Hans 
grave.       Wilhelm  Kress,  could  still  read  on  the  tombstone  the 
inscription :  '  Hie  Hgt  der  streng  Ritter  herr  Wolfram  von  Eschen- 
bach ein  Meister  Singer.' 

SUCCESSORS  OF  THE  GREAT  CHIVALROUS  POETS. 

The  master-works  of  chivalrous  epic  poetry  appeared  in  quick 
succession  between  1190  and  1220,  in  the  following  order:  Hart- 
mann's  '  Ereck,'  '  St.  Gregory,'  '  Armer  Heinrich'  and  '  Iwein,'  the 
first  part  of  '  Parzival/  Gottfried's  'Tristan,'  the  second  part  of  Par- 
zival,' and  Wolfram's  'Willehalm.'  Side  by  side  with  the  greater  minds 
smaller  geniuses  successfully  established  their  claims.  The  division 
between  the  religious  and  the  secular  view  of  life,  which  was  so 
marked  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  had  gradually  disap- 
peared, and  among  the  poets  of  this  period  it  is  impossible  to  infer 
from  the  rank  or  position  of  the  writer  what  the  tendency  of  his  poetry 
will  be.  The  knight  Hartmann  composes  a  sacred 
Zedzikon  legend>  tne  knight  Wolfram  has  religious  aims,  the 
and  Konrad  burgher  Gottfried  is  a  pure  child  of  the  world.  The 
von  Fusses-  Swiss  Ulrich  von  Zetzikon,  the  author  of  a  frivolous  Ar- 
thurian Romance,  '  Lanzelet,'  was  a  priest  at  Lommis, 
in  Thurgau.  He  imitated  Hartmann's  '  Ereck,'  but  adhered  more 
closely  than  Hartmann  to  the  popular  style.  The  Austrian  knight 
Konrad  von  Fussesbrunnen  applied  the  new  art  of  chivalrous  poetry 
to  the  charming  idyll  of  the  childhood  of  Christ,  as  told  in  the  apo- 
Wirent  von  cryphal  gospels.  The  Franconian  knight,  Wirent  von 
Grafenberg.  Grafenberg,  who  imitated,  first  Hartmann,  and  then 
Wolfram,  tried  in  his  '  Wigalois '  to  introduce  a  religious  element 
into  the  Arthurian  romance,  and  made  the  chief  enemy  of  the 
hero  a  heathen,  and  the  hero  himself  a  kind  of  Crusader.  The 

Austrian  Strieker  a  man  of  the  bourgeois  class,  wrote 
Strieker. 

many  fables  tales,  and  farces,  and  composed  an  Ar- 
thurian romance,  '  Daniel  von  Blumenthal,'  in  which  the  love  ad- 


Ch.  VI.]     Successors  of  the  Great  Chivalrous  Poets.         177 

ventures   occupy  a    secondary   position,   and  the  descriptions  of 
fighting  preponderate ;    he    also    turned    the    '  Rolandslied '   into 

smooth,  elegant  verse.     Unlike  Strieker,   the  some- 

Konrad 
what  worldly  poets    Konrad  Fleck  and  Ulrich  von    pieck  and 

dem  Tiirlin  were  of  noble  birth.  Konrad  Fleck  of  Ulrich  von 
Allemannia  related  the  story  of  the  child-love  of  Flor  dem  Tiirlin- 
and  Blancheflur,  dwelling  specially,  in  true  German  spirit,  on  their 
faithfulness  to  each  other,  and  showing  as  strict  regard  for  etiquette 
as  Hartmann.  Ulrich  von  dem  Tiirlin,  a  Carinthian,  wrote  a 
long  and  somewhat  dreary  epic,  entitled  'The  Crown  of  Ad- 
ventures' ('Der  Abenteuer  Krone'),  and  thereby  introduced  the 
Arthurian  romance  into  the  South-East  districts  of  Germany.  His 
coarse  and  realistic  style  bears  witness  to  the  lower  level  of  chivalrous 
culture  in  the  circles  for  which  he  wrote.  All  these  poets  follow  the 
example  of  the  great  masters  in  choosing  some  foreign  characteris- 
original  for  the  basis  of  their  works  ;  most  of  them  turn  tics  of  these 
French  poems  into  German  couplets,  and  think  that  later  P°ets- 
what  they  are  telling  is  true  history.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  how- 
ever, many  poets  followed  in  the  steps  of  the  old  minstrels,  who  in 
their  stories  of  King  Rother,  Morold,  Orendel,  St.  Oswald,  allowed 
their  imagination  to  get  the  better  of  tradition.  They  appeal  to 
some  book  which  they  pretend  to  have  found  in  an  out-of-the-way 
place,  and  seek  by  this  device  to  secure  the  desired  authority  for 
their  works,  for  palpable  inventions  would  have  found  no  audience 
at  that  time.  They  thus  really  followed  their  own  inspirations 
without  being  able  to  free  themselves  entirely  from  the  spell  of 
tradition.  They  mainly  exercised  their  invention  in  new  combina- 
tions of  approved  ideas  and  incidents,  drawn  chiefly  from  the  Ar- 
thurian legends,  but  also  from  the  heroic  poetry,  from  'Parzival'  and 
from  other  poems.  The  name  of  the  hero  often  shows  what  poem 
has  served  as  their  model.  '  Daniel  von  Blumenthal '  finds  a  suc- 
cessor in  '  Garel  vom  bliihenden  Thai.'  Wigalois  is  replaced  by 
Wigamur,  the  knight  with  the  lion  by  the  knight  with  the  eagle,  or 
even  the  knight  with  the  goat.  Elements  derived  from  the  Arthurian 
Romances  were  introduced  into  the  heroic  legends ;  the  institution 
of  the  Round  Table  was  attributed  to  Apollonius  of  Tyre,  a  hero 
of  Greek  romance.  Eastern  subjects  connected  with  the  crusades, 

N 


178  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  VL 

elopements,  and  conversions  of  the  heathen  were  again  revived, 
and  the  marvels  of  '  Herzog  Ernst '  were  combined  with  the 
marvels  of  Celtic  legends. 

But  the  reality  of  everyday  life  also  began  to  assert  its  claims 
and  history  gained  new  favour.  The  twelfth-century  poem  of 
'  Graf  Rudolf,'  which  connected  romantic  incidents  with  real 
Historical  events  in  the  history  of  the  kingdom  of  Jerusalem, 
romances.  found  imitation  in  a  series  of  semi-historical  romances. 
The  scene  of  these  romances  is  generally  laid  in  some  well- 
known  part  of  Europe  or  Asia,  and  they  either  describe  real 
historical  incidents,  or  narrate  the  deeds  of  valour  and  marvellous 
adventures  of  the  fabled  ancestors  of  some  German  reigning 
family.  The  style  of  narrative  in  these  romances  is  sometimes 
very  realistic,  and  all  the  incidents  seem  to  reflect  conditions  of 
contemporary  life. 

The  newly  awakened  historical  interest  showed  itself  in  yet  another 
direction.     There  was  a  greater  demand  for  historical  information, 
such  as  had  been  supplied  by  the  '  Kaiserchronik.' 
The  '  Kaiserchronik'  itself  was  continued  down  to  1250, 
to  Rudolph  von  Habsburg.    Alexander  the  Great  and  the  Trojan 
war  found   new  historians,  and  several   universal   chronicles  ap- 
peared which  began  by  versifying  the  Old  Testament,  then  advanced 
to   the  New,  and   arrived  by  great   bounds   at  Charlemagne  or 
Frederick  II.     Many  rhymed  chronicles  were  also  produced,  nar- 
rating in  German  verse  the  history  of  convents,  towns,  or  pro- 
vinces, dry  records  of  fact  as  a  rule,  but  sometimes  showing  real 
Ottokar's     eP'c  talent.     In  this  class  of  literature  the  palm  be- 
History  of   longs  to  Meister  Ottokar  of  Styria,  who  relates  the 
Germany.     fortunes  of  Germany  in  the  latter  half  of  the  thirteenth 
and  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  from  the  political  stand- 
point of  a   Styrian   noble,   and   delights   us    by  an   astonishing 
wealth    of  information.      He    has    great    powers    of    narrative, 
and  writes  with  still  greater  art.     In  this  respect  he  is  certainly 
one   of    the   greatest   German   historians.      He    applied    to   the 
writing  of  history  the  art  of  narrative,  which  had  been  developed  in 
the  chivalrous  epics.     The  knowledge  of  the  inner  life  of  men 
which  had  been  gained  through  the  introspective  poetry  of  the 


Ch.  vi.]     Successors  of  the  Great  Chivalrous  Poets.         179 

chivalrous  classical  period,  the  power  of  drawing  character  or  re- 
vealing it  in  characteristic  actions,  was  here  applied  to  the  writing 
of  history.  Thanks  to  the  realistic  tendencies  of  this  later  period, 
we  gain  from  this  history  many  welcome  details  of  manners,  cos- 
tumes, and  ways  of  life.  The  Bavarian  plain-spokenness,  which  had 
already  shown  itself  in  the  satirical  writings  of  the  twelfth  century, 
imparts  great  vigour  to  the  descriptions.  We  see  that  the  knightly 
taste  for  tournaments  and  festivals  still  continued,  and  that  the  ser- 
vice of  women  still  exerted  its  ennobling  influence.  Ottokar  and 
many  of  these  later  poets  are  fond  of  appealing  to  the  genius  of 
Wolfram  and  Gottfried,  and  wishing  that  these  poets  could  come 
to  their  aid  when  they  are  in  difficulties ;  but  if  placed  side  by 
side  with  such  great  masters  these  lesser  writers  would  be  totally 
eclipsed. 

The  poems  of  Wolfram  and  Gottfried  furnished  much  work  for 
their  successors,  for  '  Tristan '  and  '  Willehalm,'  as  we  have  noliced, 
were  both  left  unfinished.  Two  poets  tried  their  hand  at  a  continua- 
tion of  '  Tristan,'  the  better  of  the  two,  as  late  as  1 300.  A  conclusion 
was  added  to  '  Willehalm,'  and  also  an  introduction  narrating  the 
carrying  off  of  Giburg,  the  former  being  borrowed  from  a  French 
source,  and  the  latter  due  to  the  author's  imagination.  Q0ttfrie<j.>s 
In  general  Gottfried's  school  pursued  the  old  conscien-  and 

tious  method  of  seeking  some  authority  for  what  they    'Wolfram's 
.         ...  disciples, 

wrote,  so  as  not  to  seem  to  be  telling  anything  untrue. 

Wolfram's  disciples  on  the  contrary  gave  free  rein  to  their  imagination. 
Gottfried's  school  flourished  in  Allemannia,  while  Wolfram  found 
his  followers  in  Bavaria.  Gottfried's  successors  aimed  at  elegance 
and  clearness,  which  however  often  degenerated  into  trivial  verbo- 
sity; Wolfram's  disciples  strove  to  be  intellectual  and  thoughtful, 
and  easily  became  obscure  and  affected.  Gottfried's  school  pro- 
duced poets  who  were  something  more  than  mere  imitators,  such 
as  Rudolf  von  Ems  and  Konrad  von  Wtirzburg;  Wolfram's 
disciples  preferred  to  conceal  themselves  behind  their  great  master 
and  speak  in  his  name.  But  while  Gottfried's  fame  declined  with 
the  decline  of  that  elegant  culture,  which  was  his  chief  characteristic, 
Wolfram's  reputation  lived  on,  partly  owing  to  the  fact  that  the 
bad  qualities  of  his  successors,  who  were  confounded  with  himself, 

N  a 


180  The  Epics  of  Chivalry-  [Ch.  VL 

appealed  to  the  taste  of  a  period  which  could  no  longer  appreciate 
the  true  worth  of  this  great  poet. 

Rudolf  von  Ems  and  Konrad  von  Wurzburg  are  far  from 
R  ,  . .  adopting  the  purely  worldly  principles  of  their  master. 

Ems  and  Both  have  something  honest  and  sterling  about  them, 
Konrad  von  the  knight  Rudolf  still  more  than  the  bourgeois 
•Wurzburg.  j£onra(j4  Each  again  formed  a  school  of  his  own, 
setting  an  example  to  lesser  poets,  and  doing  good  service  to 
German  literature  in  preserving  the  tradition  of  cultivated  form 
and  refined  language. 

The  object  of  Rudolf  von  Ems  seems  to  be  rather  to  instruct 

Eudolf's  anc^  edify  lhan  to  entertain.  His  '  Guter  Ge  "iard/ 
'  Guter  which  preaches  self-sacrifice  and  humility,  is  the  story 

Gerhard.'  of  a  merchant  of  Cologne,  who  ransoms  Christian 
prisoners  from  the  heathen  and  refuses  the  Crown  of  England. 

His  •  Bar-     His  '  Barlaam  and  Josaphat '  inculcates  renunciation 

laam  and     of  the  world  and  voluntary  poverty.     It  is  the  story 

Josaphat.     Qf  an  jn(jian  prince  Josaphat,  who  is  converted  to 

Christianity  by  the  hermit  Barlaam,  resists  all  temptations,  gives 

up  his  throne,  and  himself  turns  hermit  *.     His  '  Wilhelm  von  Or- 

Works  of    lens '  is  a  realistic  semi-historical  romance  of  the  kind 

history.  described  above.  His  '  Alexander,'  his  lost  '  Trojan 
War,'  his  '  Universal  Chronicle,'  which  he  only  brought  down  as 
far  as  Solomon,  are  records  of  profane  and  sacred  history. 

Rudolf  probably  began  to  write  about  the  year  1225;  he  was 
somehow  connected  with  the  champions  of  the  Hohenstaufen 
party  in  Germany,  and  his  universal  chronicle  is  dedicated  to 
Konrad  IV,  in  whose  train  he  went  to  Italy,  where  he  died  be- 
tween 1251  and  1254. 

Konrad  von  Wurzburg  went  by  Strasburg  to  Basle,  where  he 
Konrad  von  mar"e(^  an^  settled,  and  where  he  died  in  1287,  at 
Wurzburg's  the  same  time  as  his  wife  and  daughters,  probably 
'  Frau  Welt,'  from  some  epidemic.  He  probably  began  his  literary 
career  about  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  with 
that  poem  of  '  Lady  World,'  which  we  have  already  mentioned, 

1  This  story  really  originated  in  India,  and  contains  in  fact  the  narrative  of 
the  life  of  Buddha. 


Ch.  vi.]    Successors  of  the  Great  Chivalrous  Poets.         181 

whose  hero  was  Wirent  von  Grafenberg.     (Cf.  p.  72.)     Gottfried's 
influence  on  him  is  not  very  marked.     Konrad  was  gifted  with 
great  fluency,  and  he  generally  worked  up  his  poetic  material  in  a 
rather  mechanical  fashion.     His  poetry  is  full  of  empty  padding, 
there  is  no  end  to  the  long  descriptions  and  speeches,  and  it  is 
only  here  and  there  that  we  are  pleased  by  a  good  simile  or  a 
well-described  situation.     Konrad's  culture   must  have  been   ac- 
quired in  some  monastery- school.     He  related  in  verse  some  of  those 
German  legends  of  which  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  His  German 
centuries  produced  so  many  in  Latin,  (cf.  pp.  84-88,)      legends, 
the  stories  of  Otto  with  the  beard,  of  the  Swan-knight,  and  of 
the  devoted   friends   Engelhart  and  Dietrich.     But  at  Basle  he 
also  wrote  sacred  legends  at  the  commission  of  nobles         The 
and  burghers,  and  in  the  '  Goldene  Schmiede'  he  put     'Goldene 
forth  his  highest  powers  to  sing  the  praises  of  the    Schmiede. 
Virgin  Mary.     Out  of  all  the  fantastic  images  and  epithets  which 
pious  worship  of  the  mother  of  God  and  curious  enquiry  about 
the    mystery    of  the   Incarnation    had   piled    up    for    centuries, 
Konrad,  like  a  skilful  goldsmith,  as  the  title  of  his  work  implies, 
has  made  a  sparkling  crown  for  the  head  of  the  queen  of  heaven. 
His  'Partonopier  und  Meliur,'  on  the  contrary,  is  a     <partono- 
true  French  romance,  full  of  tournaments,  conflicts  with     pier  und 
the  heathen,  and  tender  love-scenes,  the  best  of  which      Meliur. 
reminds  us  of  Cupid  and  Psyche.     Lastly,  he  too  was  haunted  by 
the  mediaeval  ghost  of  the  Iliad,  which  we  have  already  noticed  as 
a  characteristic  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  concocted  a  poem  on 
the   Trojan   war,  drawn   from    Benoit  de   St.  More   and  various 
classical  sources  ;  death  prevented  him  from  finishing  this  work, 
which   was  continued   by   a  later  poet   to   the   length   of  nearly 
50,000  lines.     Konrad  also  wrote  lyrical  poems,  mostly      Lyrical 
roundelays,  in  which  he  displayed  a  marvellous  power       poems, 
of  rhyming.     The   thoughts    embodied   in  these  poems  are  for 
the  most  part  very   trivial,   and  they  contain  hardly  any  of  the 
poet's    personal    experiences.     Konrad   repeatedly    tells   us    that 
the   times  are   unfavourable  to    poetry,   and   that   the   patronage 
which  the  art  required  was  declining.     And  he  could  give  us  no 
stronger  proof  of  this  than  his  own  actual  endeavour  to  make  clear 


182  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [ch.  vi. 

to  an  unappreciative  audience  the  utility  of  the  poetic  art.  Poetry, 
he  says,  benefits  the  ear,  the  heart,  the  tongue ;  it  sounds  pleasant 
to  the  ear,  it  lends  courtly  breeding  to  the  heart,  and  imparts  elo- 
quence to  the  tongue.  He  himself  would  sing  like  the  nightingale, 

'  Klage  der  even  if  no  one  listened  to  him.  His  '  Complaint  of 
Kunst.'  AJ^'  which  deals  with  the  same  subject,  is  written  as 
an  allegory — a  form  of  poetry  which  recurs  again  and  again  in  later 
literature,  and  which  found  favour  even  as  late  as  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  poet  is  led  by  Imagination  to  a  beautiful  spot  in  a 
wood,  which  he  describes  in  charming  language.  There  he  finds 
a  gathering  of  noble  ladies  :  Justice,  who  wears  the  crown,  Truth, 
Mercy,  Loyalty,  Steadfastness,  Generosity,  Honour,  Modesty,  and 
Chastity,  in  fact  all  the  cardinal  virtues  of  chivalry.  Lady  Art 
appears  before  Justice  in  a  torn  robe ;  she  has  been  struck  by  the 
arrow  of  Poverty,  and  brings  a  complaint  against  Generosity  for 
having  withdrawn  her  aid  from  true  Art.  After  a  long  discussion 
the  accusation  is  of  course  found  to  be  just,  and  everyone  is  ex- 
horted to  lend  their  support  to  true  Art. 

Rudolf  and  Konrad  stand,  both  intellectually  and  artistically,  on 

The  later  a  ^ar  l°wer  ^eve^  tnan  tneir  chosen  master,  Gottfried. 
•Titurei'by  Another  poem  of  this  period,  a  later  '  Titurel,'  which 

Albrecht.  for  a  iong  time  was  taken  for  a  work  of  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach's,  is  equally  inferior  to  the  work  of  the  real  Wolfram. 
In  this  uninteresting  epic,  full  of  single  combats,  wars,  tournaments, 
and  sea-voyages,  the  songs  of  Wolfram's  '  Titurel '  have  been 
worked  up  and  enlarged  into  a  complete  history  of  Schionatulander 
and  Sigune.  The  object  of  the  writer  is  evidently  to  complete 
Wolfram's  Parzival ;  all  that  is  merely  hinted  at  there  is  here 
carried  out  in  detail ;  the  race  of  the  Grail-sovereigns  is  traced 
back  to  Troy,  the  position  of  the  Grail-castle  is  fixed  in  Spain,  and 
the  Grail  itself  is  finally  transported  to  India.  The  author  speaks 
as  though  he  were  Wolfram  himself ;  at  the  same  time  he  does  not 
really  wish  to  be  taken  for  Wolfram,  for  he  makes  no  secret  of  the 
fact  that  the  materials  which  he  uses  were  fifty  years  old.  His 
real  name  was  Albrecht,  he  had  relations  with  Duke  Ludwig  the 
Stern,  and  wrote  between  1260  and  1270.  He  knew  his  Wolfram 
well,  and  was  not  shy  of  decking  himself  in  his  master's  feathers.  But 


Ch.  vi.]    Successors  of  the  Great  Chivalrous  Poets.         1 83 

he  also  appeals  to  Homer,  Aristotle,  Hippocrates,  and  Avicenna,  and 
he  is  really  well  acquainted  with  many  secular  and  religious  writ- 
ings to  which  he  refers.  He  is  a  very  learned  man,  and  loves  to 
display  his  learning.  He  ranks  the  priestly  order  the  highest  of  all, 
but  immediately  after  them  he  places  the  scholars,  then  the  men  of 
high  nobility,  and  far  below  these  the  knights.  He  is  a  faithful 
and  enthusiastic  servant  of  the  church,  and  makes  his  heroes  and 
heroines  pray  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  fast,  confess,  seek  indulgence 
and  found  monasteries,  become  hermits,  monks  and  nuns,  spread 
Christianity  by  fire  and  sword,  and  generally  increase  the  power  of 
the  hierarchy.  Albrecht  condemns  and  despises  the  savage,  mad 
heathen  and  the  barbarian  Greeks,  who,  according  to  him,  worship 
cattle.  And  this  poet  actually  ventures  to  speak  in  the  name  of 
Wolfram,  who  could  not  read  or  write,  who  prided  himself  on 
his  knighthood,  who  spoke  so  kindly  of  the  heathen,  who  made 
his  Parzival  attain  salvation  only  through  inward  conversion,  and 
in  whose  works  there  appears  no  trace  of  Mariolatry !  But  the 
pious  and  intolerant  spirit  of  Albrecht's  work  recommended  it  to 
the  clergy,  while  the  fighting  and  interludes  of  love  found  favour 
with  the  knights ;  the  obscurity  and  vagueness  of  style  were  taken 
for  depth  of  thought,  and  thus  the  success  of  the  poem  was  assured. 
At  the  end  of  Wolfram's  '  Parzival '  a  slight  allusion  is  made  to 
the  history  of  Parzival's  son  Loherangrin,  who  was  Legend  of 
carried  by  a  swan  to  Antwerp,  where  he  landed  and  Lohengrin, 
became  the  husband  of  the  much-admired  princess  of  Brabant,  on 
the  condition  that  she  should  never  ask  who  he  was;  but  she 
breaks  the  agreement,  and  he  is  therefore  obliged  to  depart ;  the 
swan  with  its  boat  comes  to  fetch  him,  and  takes  him  home  again 
to  the  Grail.  The  author  of  the  later  '  Titurel '  also  mentions 
Loherangrin,  and  tells  of  his  second  marriage  and  his  death. 
Konrad  von  Wurzburg  treats  the  same  legend  in  his  '  Schwanritter,' 
but  without  naming  the  knight,  and  without  introducing  any  con- 
nection with  the  Grail.  In  a  Bavarian  poem,  written 

Bavarian 

before  the  year  1 290,  a  detailed  history  of  Loherangrin     P0em  on 
or  Lohengrin  is  put  in  the  mouth  of  Wolfram  von  the  subject, 
Eschenbach   himself.      In   this  poem   Lohengrin   is  be  ore  ]  " 
made  to  fight  with  Friedrich  von  Telramund  in  the  presence  of 


1 84  The  Epics  of  Chivalry.  [Ch.  vi. 

King  Henry  I,  for  the  possession  of  Elsa  of  Brabant.  He  takes 
part  in  the  Hungarian  wars  of  this  prince,  fights  against 
the  Saracens,  and  after  his  return  to  the  Grail,  the  poem  gives  us  a 
short  sketch  of  German  history  down  to  Henry  II ;  the  historical 
tendency  and  the  everlasting  theme  of  the  Crusades  here  too  assert 
their  power.  The  treatment  is  realistic,  and  the  poem  reflects  the 
spirit  of  Wolfram  rather  than  that  of  the  later  Titurel.  It  was  en- 
larged by  subsequent  additions,  like  a  popular  ballad,  and  was  later 
on  entirely  remodelled  under  the  name  of  '  Lorengel.' 

Wolfram's   influence   can   be   traced   still   further   in   Bavaria. 
_  ,  Hadamar   von  Laber,  a  Bavarian,  wrote,   about  the 

-Ci  tV  (I  HIT)  9>r 

von  Labor's  year  1340,  an  allegory  called  'Die  Jagd,'  which  en- 
allegory,  joyed  great  popularity  and  was  repeatedly  imitated. 
ie  ag  .  rp^e  <£hase»  whjch  ne  describes  is  courtship,  and  his 
heart  is  the  dog  which  leads  him  on  the  track  of  the  game.  Joy, 
constancy,  faithfulness,  desire,  and  other  emotions  of  the  mind  are 
likewise  represented  as  dogs,  and  thus  under  the  image  of  a  chase 
a  little  romance  is  unfolded  before  us.  Though  the  idea  may  seem 
strange  to  us,  and  though  its  childish  ingenuity  may  appeal  but 
little  to  our  more  critical  taste,  yet  we  must  acknowledge  that  there 
is  a  breath  of  Wolfram's  freshness  throughout  the  poem,  and  that 
the  author  shows  love  of  nature,  reverence  for  women,  and  inde- 
pendence of  mind.  An  older  sportsman  directs  the  young  huntsman 
towards  the  things  which  are  eternal,  but  the  youth  answers  in  words 
something  like  these  :  '  I  should  like  to  set  myself  free  from  the 
world,  if  I  had  only  the  favour  of  the  one  woman  whose  love  seems 
to  me  the  highest  happiness.'  The  secular  view  of  life  here  shines 
out  once  more  in  a  noble  light,  in  contrast  with  the  general  decay 
of  the  refined  manners  and  lofty  sentiments  embodied  in  the 
chivalrous  epics. 

Clerical  intolerance  was  beginning  to  make  its  appearance  even 

in  Wolfram's  own  school.     The  Bavarian  priests  were 

clerical      not  ^le,  an(*  tne'r  influence  is  clearly  discernible,  for 

influence,     instance,  in  a  long  epic  in  praise  of  St.  George,  written 

Religious     abOut  this  time  by  a  knightly  imitator  of  Wolfram.    In 

Austria  various  religious  poems  appeared  about  the 

year  1300,  while  in  Allemannia  Konrad's  sacred  legends  and  praises 


Ch.  vi.]    Successors  of  the  Great  Chivalrous  Poets.         185 

of  the  Virgin  were  much  copied.  A  knight  of  the  Teutonic  order, 
Hugo  von  Langenstein,  narrated  the  history  of  the  martyrdom  of  St. 
Martina  (1293)  in  a  poem  of  nearly  33,000  lines;  the  life  of  the 
Virgin  was  also  a  favourite  subject.  In  central  Germany,  a  writer 
influenced  by  the  example  of  Rudolf  von  Ems  made  two  great  col- 
lections of  sacred  legends  in  verse,  extending  over  several  thousand 
lines,  and  an  imitator  of  Konrad  von  Wurzburg  wrote  a  life  of  St. 
Elizabeth  and  a  poem  on  the  Redemption.  Yet  a  third  writer  from 
this  district  related  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin,  and  warned  men 
against  worldly  love,  exhorting  them  to  devote  their  affections  entirely 
to  the  Queen  of  Heaven :  this  noble  lady,  he  says,  will  not  require 
them  to  write  dance-songs  for  her  or  to  risk  their  lives  in  tourna- 
ment. In  Cologne  too  the  writing  of  sacred  legends  was  much 
cultivated,  and  a  leading  citizen  of  Magdeburg,  Bruno  von  Schone- 
beck,  translated  the  Song  of  Solomon  in  the  year  1276.  Finally, 
in  Prussia  the  Teutonic  knights,  besides  recording  the  deeds  of 
their  order,  made  many  verse  and  prose  translations  from  the 
Bible. 

If  we  include  under  the  title  of  artistic  epics,  as  contrasted  with 
popular  epics,  all  those  narrative  poems  which  are     peri0d  of      » 
not  based   on  national   tradition,  on   early  German       Middle 
legends,   then  we    may  say  that   the   Middle  High-        High- 
German  artistic  epic  begins  in  the  eleventh  century      Artistic 
with   the   poetical   paraphrase   of  the  first   book   of  Epics,  circa 
Moses,  and  ends  about  1350  with  the  Chronicle  of  1050-1350. 
the   Teutonic   order    by   Nicolas    of  Jeroschin,    with    Henry   of 
Munich's  Universal  Chronicle,  and  the  '  Alexandreis '  of  the  Aus- 
trian Seifried. 

The  movement  began  with  the  clergy,  was  carried  on  by  the 

minstrels,  and  the  knights  were  its  classical  represen- 

_  Summary, 

tatives.      But   the  clergy  and  the  mechanical  poets 

akin  to  the  old  minstrels,  come  again  into  prominence  at  the  close 
of  this  period.  The  aristocratic  names  which  we  begin  to  meet  with 
in  German  literature  about  the  year  1170  become  rarer  after  1250, 
and  then  their  bearers  generally  appear  only  as  writers  of  sacred 
legends.  About  the  year  1200  a  few  great  poets  succeeded  in 
developing  a  truly  individual  style  of  writing;  their  successors 


1 86  The  Epics  of  Chivalry. 

borrowed,  now  from  one,  now  from  the  other  of  these  great  writers 
whatever  suited  them,  and  even  this  eclecticism  was  better  than  the 
crude  and  mechanical  manufacture  of  verses  which  set  in  about  the 
year  1300.  Artistic  poetry  had  been  developed  from  the  sermon, 
and  the  biblical  and  sacred  legendary  poetry  of  this  later  period 
was  tending  more  and  more  to  return  to  the  style  of  the  sermon. 
The  movement  had  started  from  religious  and  didactic  subjects, 
and  to  these  subjects  it  returned  again. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

POETS    AND    PREACHERS. 

'  GOOD  morrow  to  both  bad  and  good,'  sang  Walther  von  der 
Vogelweide,  referring  to  the  guests  assembled  at  the  Court  of 
Landgrave  Hermann  of  Thuringia.  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach 
laments  the  same  mixture  of  company  at  this  court,  and  another 
time  Walther  exclaims,  'Let  anyone  with  sensitive  ears  avoid 

the  court  of  Thuringia,  for  crowds  are  always  passing 

,  .    .  J  Poetry  at 

in  and  out  there  by  day  and  night,  and  it  is  a  wonder  the  court  Of 

that  any  man  keeps  his  hearing  amid  such  a  din.'    Landgrave 
Walther  repeatedly  praises  the  generous  hospitality  Hermimnof 
of  the  Landgrave,  and  says  :  '  If  a  cart-load  of  wine 
cost  a  thousand  pounds,  he  would  allow  no  knight's   goblet  to 
stand  empty.' 

Though  this  hospitality  was  not  very  discriminating,  yet  the 
best  might  profit  by  it ;  Walther  and  Wolfram  enjoyed  it,  as  did 
Heinrich  von  Veldeke  before  them.  It  was  at  the  commission 
of  Landgrave  Hermann  that  Herbert  von  Fritzlar  wrote  his 
'Trojan  War,'  and  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  his  The  'Wart- 
'  Willehalm.'  We  still  possess  love-songs  written  by  burg-krieg.' 
Hermann's  son-in-law,  Duke  Henry  of  Anhalt;  yet  another  love- 
poet,  the  so-called  'virtuous  writer,'  appears  in  Hermann's  im- 
mediate circle,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  the  popular  singers  were 
not  absent.  The  Thuringian  Court  stands  in  the  first  rank  of 
those  which  have  at  various  times  patronised  German  poetry. 
The  poem  of  the  '  Wartburg-krieg/  describing  a  contest  among  a 
number  of  poets,  shows  clearly  that  the  glorious  times  when  Land- 
grave Hermann  held  his  court  on  the  Wartburg  and  patronised 


i88  Poets  and  Preachers.  [Ch.  vn. 

singers,  were  treasured  up  in  the  memory  of  later  popular  poets. 
In  this  poem  Heinrich  von  Ofterdingen,  a  writer  whose  works  are 
unknown  to  us,  is  made  to  praise  the  Duke  of  Austria  as  the 
fii  st  among  princes.  The  '  virtuous  writer '  opposes  him,  giving 
the  first  place  to  the  Landgrave.  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  also 
declares  in  the  Landgrave's  favour,  and  Walther  von  der  Vogel- 
weide  does  the  same  in  so  artful  a  manner  that  Ofterdingen  is 
apparently  conquered. 

The  strange  poem  which  bears  the  title  of  the  '  Wartburg-krieg' 
is  composed  of  the  most  various  elements,  the  Bavarian  poem  of 
'  Lohengrin  '  even  being  one  of  its  appendages ;  it  was  not  written 
merely  in  praise  of  Hermann  of  Thuringia,  but  chiefly  to  glorify 
Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  and  it  proves  to  us  how  the  fame  of 
this  great  poet  lived  on  among  the  wandering  gleemen.  The 
magician  Klinschor  of  Wolfram's  '  Parzival,'  with  whom  Gawan 
comes  into  contact,  is  transformed  in  the  '  Wartburg-krieg,'  under 
the  name  of  Klingsor  of  Hungary,  into  a  contemporary  of 
Wolfram's,  a  necromancer  and  astronomer,  in  reality  a  repre- 
sentative of  clerical  book-learning.  He  propounds  riddles,  which 
Wolfram  easily  guesses,  and  he  calls  hell  to  his  aid,  but  Wolfram 
easily  vanquishes  the  Devil.  The  simple  layman  defeats  the 
learned  clerk. 

The  poem  of  the  'Wartburg-krieg'  still  takes  up  a  hostile 
position  towards  the  Church,  and  attacks  the  covetousness  of 
the  clergy.  But  in  its  style  we  notice  the  same  learned  obscurity 
which  characterised  so  many  of  Wolfram's  followers,  and  which 
soon  assumed  a  clerical  colouring,  as  we  have  already  seen  in  the 
later  'Titurel.' 

The  sounds  of  feasting  had  long  since  died  away  at  the  court 

of  Thuringia.     The  days  of  Landgrave  Hermann  were  followed 

by  those  of  his  daughter-in-law,  St.  Elizabeth.     Knightly  games, 

Poetry  again  dancing,  and  entertaining,  were  succeeded  by  fasting, 

assumes  a    mortification,  and   works   of  mercy.     Wolfram,  the 

religious  friend  of  the  heathen,  was  followed  by  Konrad  of 
Marburg,  the  condemner  of  heretics.  The  preacher 
took  the  place  of  the  gleeman,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  lyric  and 
didactic  poetry  which  we  are  now  about  to  consider. 


ch.  vii.]  Walther  von  der   Vogelweide.  189 

We  have  noticed  the  first  blossoming  of  the  '  Minnesang,'  the 
troubadour-poetry  of  Germany,  on  the  Lower  Rhine  and  in 
Thuringia,  and  have  become  acquainted  with  the  lyric  rp^e  <Minne- 
poets,  Heinrich  von  Veldeke  and  Heinrich  von  sang 'on  the 

Morunsren,  Friedrich  von  Hausen  and  Reinmar  von  LowerBhme, 

the  Upper 
Hagenau.     The  art  of  the  troubadours  spread  from    Rhine,  and 

the  Rhine  down  the  Danube,  from  Swabia  to  Bavaria  in  Bavaria 
and  Austria.  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  had  Bavarian  and  Austria- 
predecessors  in  the  domain  of  love-poetry.  But  Austria  carried  off 
the  palm,  for  it  was  there  that  the  greatest  lyric  poet  of  the 
Middle  Ages  learnt  his  art.  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  was 
of  noble  birth,  and  yet  a  wandering  singer;  he  was  a  follower 
of  Reinmar  von  Hagenau,  and  at  the  same  time  a  disciple 
of  the  best  among  the  gleemen ;  he  wrote  the  most  charming 
love-songs  and  also  serious  religious  poetry.  He  was  a  chivalrous 
poet  and  at  the  same  time  a  popular  successor  of  the  Latin  poets 
of  the  twelfth  century,  a  successor  of  the  Arch-poet  in  his  patriotic 
struggle  against  the  encroachments  of  the  papacy  and  the  abuses 
of  the  Church. 

WALTHER  VON  DER  VOGELWEIDE. 

On  the  1 2th  of  November,  1203,  a  travelling  bishop,  stopping 
at  Zeisselmauer  on  the  Danube,  gave  a  sum  of  money  to  the 
singer  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  to  buy  him  a  fur  coat.  In 
the  year  1215,  an  Italian  canon,  Thomasin  von  Zirclaria,  who 
himself  made  some  attempts  in  German  poetry,  accused  Walther 
von  der  Vogelweide  of  leading  the  people  astray,  of  befooling 
thousands  by  one  of  his  poems,  and  making  them  disobedient  to 
God  and  to  the  commands  of  the  Pope. 

Walther   was   only  a  wandering   gleeman,  yet  his   voice   was 
heard   far   and  wide   through   Germany.     He  was   considered  a 
powerful  enemy,  and   his   friendship   was    probably    walther,  a 
much  sought  after.     He  lived  at  a  time  when  poetry    wandering 
was  a  great  force,  and  his  songs  flew  through  the     «leeman. 
world  like  a  pamphlet  which  everyone  reads,  or  like  an  eloquent 
speech  printed  by  all   the   newspapers.     Walther   was   probably 
born   in   Austria,  and   found   a   patron   in   Duke   Friedrich   the 


190  Poets  and  Preachers.  [ch.vn. 

Catholic,  of  the  house  of  Babenberg.  When  his  protector  died 
in  Palestine,  in  1198,  Walther  left  Vienna  and  tried  his  fortune  as 
a  political  singer.  He  was  singer  to  Philip  of  Swabia,  to  Otto  IV, 
and  Frederick  II ;  we  can  trace  the  course  of  his  life  from  1198  to 

Waltlier      J  2  2  7> an^  his  poetical  career  began  at  the  latest  in  1 1 8 7. 

a  political  His  songs  celebrated  important  events  in  German  his- 
poet.  tory^  ^re  cannot  fairly  criticise  his  change  of  political 
opinions  and  his  transference  of  allegiance  from  one  emperor  to 
another ;  for  at  this  distance  of  years,  we  have  no  means  of  estimat- 
ing the  motives  and  actions  of  men  in  those  times  of  civil  war,  when 
each  party  only  fought  for  the  upper  hand.  Personal  advantage 
was  no  doubt  a  powerful  motive  in  Walther's  case.  In  those 
simple  times  men  did  not  mind  openly  acknowledging  egoistical 
interests,  and  Walther  evidently  feels  no  shame  in  begging  for 
presents  and  reminding  people  of  their  promises  to  him,  while 
he  also  thankfully  acknowledges  the  favours  he  has  received. 
Walther's  heart's  desire  was  to  have  a  home  of  his  own.  He 
His  wander-  had  relations  not  only  with  the  Emperors,  but  with 
ing  life,  many  German  princes,  having  been  a  visitor  at  the 
courts  of  Austria,  Thuringia,  Meissen,  Bavaria,  Carinthia,  and 
Aquileja ;  he  had  travelled  from  the  Seine  to  the  Mur,  from  the  Po 
to  the  Trave,  but  nowhere  could  he  find  a  fixed  dwelling-place ; 
not  one  of  these  princes  and  patrons  gave  him  a  home,  and  the 
greatest  lyric  poet  of  the  time  was  long  condemned  to  be  a 
vagabond  and  a  beggar.  At  length  the  emperor  Frederick  II 
satisfied  his  desire,  and  gave  him  a  small  fief,  probably  in  Wiirz- 
burg.  The  poor  fellow  cannot  restrain  his  joy  at  this,  and 
exclaims  in  one  of  his  poems :  '  I  have  a  fief,  hearken  all  the  world, 
I  have  a  fief!' 

This  wandering  minstrel  who  gained  his  livelihood,  and  that 
but  a  meagre  one,  by  the  favour  of  his  patrons,  may,  under  the 
pressure  of  necessity,  have  changed  his  party,  if  that  simply  meant 
changing  his  patron,  but  he  never  changed  his  principles.  He 
was  always  a  good  patriot,  a  religious  man,  and  an  enemy  of 
the  Pope.  He  loved  and  admired  his  country  and  has  sung  its 
praises  in  a  celebrated  poem.  No  other  country,  he  says,  has 
pleased  him  so  much ;  German  manners  surpass  all  others ;  the 


ch.  vii.]  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide.  191 

men  are  well  educated,  the  women  are  like  angels.  'Let  him 
who  seeks  virtue  and  pure  love/  he  exclaims,  '  come  waither's 
to  our  country  :  much  joy  is  there  ;  oh,  may  I  long  patriotism. 
live  in  it!'  True,  he  was  not  able  to  retain  throughout  his1 
life  this  happy  view  of  the  world  around  him;  evil  years  came, 
years  in  which  chivalry  decayed  in  Germany,  and  the  poet  might 
well  ask  himself  whether  his  life  was  all  a  dream,  whether  every- 
thing that  he  had  held  sacred  and  true  had  been  really  but  a 
delusion.  Yet,  even  in  the  touching  elegy  where  he  expresses 
his  grief  at  the  change  in  his  fatherland,  it  is  still  the  enthusiastic 
patriot  whose  voice  we  hear,  and  his  grief  flows  from  his  love. 
His  sorrow  for  his  country  is  combined  with  pious  sentiment,  and 
his  heart  is  set  on  a  journey  to  the  Holy  Land.  There  was  an  older 
German  poet,  unknown  to  us  by  name,  who,  like  Walther,  lamented 
his  wretchedness,  longed  for  a  home  of  his  own,  praised  his  patrons 
and  at  the  same  time  confessed  his  personal  faults;  this  poet 
afterwards  took  to  exhorting  his  contemporaries,  sang  about  all 
the  sacred  subjects  of  Christian  doctrine,  and  quite  adopted  the 
religious  view  of  the  world.  In  later  life  Waither's  poetry  likewise 
assumed  a  religious  colouring,  and  he  wrote,  in  solemn  measures, 
a  declaration  of  his  faith  and  a  confession  of  his  sins  ;  he  sang  of 

the  Holy  Trinity,  of  the  Virgin  Mary  and  of  Christ's 

11,  ,-     i        i        !•  i  i       Beligioua 

crucifixion  ;  declared  all  men  fools  who  did  not  seek 


temporal  happiness  and  eternal  salvation  from  the  character  of 
Virgin  and  her  Son,  and  discouraged  as  vain  all 
speculations  about  the  nature  of  God.  He  implores 
the  blessing  of  heaven  in  a  morning-prayer  full  of  childish  piety. 
Walther  is  far  removed  from  the  frivolity  of  the  Arch-poet.  He 
wrote  special  poems  in  reproof  of  intemperance,  and  with  true 
moral  seriousness  he  insisted  upon  a  right  medium  in  all  things. 
He  who  conquers  himself  seems  to  him  the  true  hero,  for  such 
an  one  has  really  overcome  a  lion  and  a  giant.  A  man's  cha- 
racter must  be  firm  as  a  stone,  in  loyalty  smooth  and  straight 
like  an  arrow.  Walther  attacks  the  double-tongued,  th&  liars 
and  deceivers.  He  knows  the  value  of  friendship,  and  esteems  it 
higher  than  relationship  ;  '  let  the  smile  of  a  friend,'  he  says,  '  be  true 
and  without  falseness,  clear  as  the  evening  glow  which  prophesies 


192  Poets  and  Preachers.  [ch.  vil. 

a  fine  morrow.'  Walther  specially  notes  that  the  striving  after  gold 
and  riches,  as  well  as  extreme  wealth  or  extreme  poverty,  exercises 
a  demoralising  effect  on  a  man.  In  his  old  age  he  exerted  his 
influence  to  forward  the  Crusade  of  Frederick  II,  and  wrote  pious 
marching-songs  for  the  army.  He  turned  from  earthly  to  heavenly 
love,  and  took  leave  of  Lady  World  whom  he  had  served  so  long. 

But  all  his  piety  does  not  prevent  his  looking  at  things  from 
a  free  human  stand-point,  and  distinguishing  Christianity  itself 
from  its  official  representatives.  This  homeless  roving  singer  is 
;in  enlightened  apostle  of  humanity  and  toleration;  he  knows 
His  liberal  and  declares  that  death  makes  master  and  servant 
views.  equal,  and  that  Christians,  Jews,  and  heathens  serve 
one  and  the  same  God.  He  scorns  the  belief  in  dreams,  demands 
liberal  education,  tells  princes  their  duties,  and  vindicates  the 
His  hostility  r'ghts  of  the  German  people  against  papal  preten- 
to  the  sions.  He  ascribes  the  Civil  War  then  raging  in 
Papacy.  Germany  to  papal  machinations,  and  calls  the  pope 
the  new  Judas,  characterising  him  as  a  servant  of  the  devil, 
who  wishes  to  deliver  over  all  Christendom  to  his  master.  He 
reminds  him  of  the  curse  which  he  as  Pope  had  pronounced 
against  all  the  emperor's  enemies  at  his  coronation,  and  says  he 
had  thereby  cursed  himself.  Walther  opposes  any  interference 
of  the  clergy  at  all  in  secular  affairs,  and  quotes  in  reference 
to  this  Christ's  words  about  the  tribute-money :  '  Render  to  Caesar 
the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  and  to  God  the  things  that  are  God's.' 
He  considers  the  secular  power  of  the  pope  a  poison  which  has 
entered  into  the  Church;  'Christendom,'  he  says,  'lies  in  the 
hospital,  and  waits  in  vain  for  a  healing  drink  from  Rome.  The 
Pope  himself  increases  infidelity,  for  he  leads  the  clergy  by  the 
devil's  rein ;  they  are  full  of  vices,  they  do  not  practise  what  they 
preach,  and  he  who  is  a  Christian  in  words  only,  not  in  deeds, 
is  really  half  a  heathen.' 

All   those   poems  of  Walther's  which  refer   to   public   affairs, 

Walther's    or  express  his  own  principles,  are  generally  called 

'  Spruche.'    'Sprliche'  (sayings,  proverbs).    They  are  all  short  and 

easy  to  remember,  songs  of  one  verse,  probably  accompanied  by 

a  pleasing  and  easy  melody,  so  that  they  could  wander  from 


Ch.  vii.]  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide.  193 

mouth  to  mouth  like  an  anecdote  or  an  epigram.  They  are  as 
interesting  as  a  fable,  as  pregnant  as  a  proverb,  and  often  entirely 
calculated  for  popular  effect.  Many  of  these  '  Spriiche '  may  be 
reduced  to  one  leading  proposition,  which  is  sometimes  contained 
in  the  opening  line,  sometimes  to  be  inferred  at  the  close ;  a  few 
furnish  a  short  illustration  of  the  main  statement.  A  '  Spruch ' 
written  in  favour  of  the  election  of  Philip  of  Swabia  as  emperor 
gradually  works  up  to  the  final  challenge  to  the  German  people : 
'  Place  then  the  crown  on  Philip's  head.'  Walther  wishes  to  express 
his  thought  in  the  most  graphic  form,  and  in  doing  this  he  does 
not  mind  exaggeration.  Inward  moods  are  expressed  by  outward 
symptoms  ;  instead  of  saying,  '  I  was  grieved/  Walther  says : 
'My  haughty  crane's  steps  changed  into  dragging  peacock's 
steps,  I  let  my  head  hang  down  to  my  knees.'  A  general  truth 
is,  if  possible,  brought  home  to  us  in  a  concrete  instance,  and 
many  similar  experiences  are  reduced  to  one  typical  form.  As 
an  instance  of  the  former  we  may  mention  the  '  Spnich '  beginning : 
'  Ich  sass  auf  einem  Steine.' 

Some  of  the  '  Spriiche '  are  purely  narrative,  as,  for  instance, 
the  one  on  King  Philip's  Christmas  feast  at  Magdeburg;  or 
the  story  may  be  told  for  the  sake  of  its  symbolic  meaning, 
as  in  the  case  of  Christ  and  the  tribute-money.  But  in  many 
of  them  only  the  opening  lines  are  narrative,  in  order  to  give 
the  poem  a  more  popular  character,  as  in  the  one  mentioned 
above,  '  Ich  sass  auf  einem  Steine,'  or,  '  Ich  hort'  ein  Wasser 
rauschen/  or,  'Konig  Constantin  der  gab  so  viel.'  Sometimes 
the  narrative  element  is  combined  with  the  dramatic,  as  in  the 
poem :  '  Ich  horte  fern  in  einer  Zelle  lauten  Jammerruf/  where 
Walther  puts  his  complaint  about  the  pope  into  the  mouth 
of  a  holy  hermit.  Great  dramatic  effect  is  also  attained  by 
Walther's  manner  of  directly  addressing  the  emperor,  the 
pope,  the  princes  and  other  persons,  or  even  lifeless  objects. 
In  one  poem  he  addresses  Lady  World,  while  in  another  he 
attacks  the  '  gift-staves/  in  which  Innocent  III.  caused  money  to 
be  collected  for  the  Crusade ;  '  Say  on,  Sir  Stick,'  he  exclaims, 
'hath  the  pope  sent  thee  hither  to  make  him  rich  and  to 
plunder  the  Germans?'  The  gist  of  this  'Spruch'  is  given  in 

o 


1 94  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  vn. 

the  conclusion :  '  Sir  Stick,  thou  art  sent  hither  for  an  evil  pur- 
pose, to  seek  out  foolish  men  and  women  in  Germany.'  But 
Walther's  boldest  attempt  at  dramatizing  is  seen  in  the  poem  where 
he  dares  to  introduce  the  pope  in  the  midst  of  his  Italian  subjects, 
laughing  and  scoffing  at  the  Germans,  and  boasting  of  his  shrewd 
policy :  '  I  have  put  two  Germans  under  one  crown,  so  that 
they  may  devastate  the  land.  Meanwhile,  we  can  fill  our  coffers.' 
Bitter  hatred  dictated  this  '  Spruch,'  and  a  more  stirring  epigram 
was  probably  never  written.  Here  the  people's  poet  becomes  in 
truth  the  people's  leader,  or  the  people's  misleader,  according  to 
the  words  of  the  Italian  canon  quoted  above.  The  gleeman  here 
becomes  the  demagogue. 

In  his  '  Spriiche '  Walther  followed  in  the  steps  of  the  gleemen, 
while  he  wielded  a  power  attained  by  no  popular  singer  before 
or  since.  But  in  his  love-lyrics  it  is  the  knight  who  is  speaking 
throughout.  Some  of  the  qualities,  however,  which  distinguish  him 
in  his  '  Spriiche '  appear  again,  as  far  as  the  subject  and  the 
artistic  form  will  allow,  in  his  lyrics.  He  is  lively,  realistic,  and 
plain-spoken,  sometimes  even  to  excess ;  he  introduces  narrative 
and  dramatic  effects,  and  proves  himself  in  all  these  respects  a  true 
son  of  the  Bavarian  stock. 

In  Austria  and  Bavaria,  the  Minnesang  of  the  nobles  sprang 

from  the  popular  love-songs.     Even  at  the  present 

opu  ar      ^       tne   inhabitants  of  jne    Bavarian   and   Austrian 

character  of       J 

the  Minne-   highlands  are  distinguished  by  their  gift  of  bold  im- 

sang  in      provisation  in  song,  and  we  may  look  upon  this  as 

Austria  an     an  inheritance   from   older   times.     Love-songs    are 
Bavaria. 

a  universal  heritage,  and  if  conveyed  in  a   happy 

simile,  or  a  pregnant  expression,  they  may  continue  to  live  for 
centuries.  '  Thou  art  mine,  I  am  thine ; '  this  thought  is  common 
to  all  poetry,  and  we  find  it  expressed  with  a  pretty  simile  in 
a  short  German  popular  lyric  of  the  twelfth  century ; 

•  Du  bist  min,  ich  bin  din : 
Des  solt  du  gewis  sin. 
Du  bist  beslozzen 
In  niincm  her/en, 
Verlom  ist  daz  sliizzelin : 
Du  muost  immer  drinne  sin.' 


Ch.  vii.]  WaltJier  von  der  Vogelweide.  195 

The  German  popular  love-ditties  were  wafted  into  the  castles 
of  the  nobles.  The  unnoticed  impromptu  jests  of  an  earlier  time 
were,  in  the  twelfth  century,  developed  into  short  songs,  which  the 
newly- awakened  artistic  consciousness  of  the  aristocracy  admired 
and  appropriated. 

About  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  a  knight  called  Kiiren- 
berg,  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Linz  on  the  Danube,    Bitter  von 
invented   a   four-lined   stanza   of  easy   construction,    Kurenberg. 
which   became  the  fashionable  form  for  improvised  verses,  and 
remained  for  a  long  time  in  such  favour  on  the   banks  of  the 
Danube,  that  it  was  even  adopted  by  the  writers  of  the  Nibelungen 
songs. 

Later  on,  a  Burggraf  of  Regensburg  sang  similar  simple  songs 
in  kindred  forms  of  verse.  These  are  the  only  names  Burggraf  von 
of  lyric  poets  known  to  us  in  this  early  period ;  little  Regensburg. 
has  been  preserved  from  this  spring-tide  of  the  national  Minne- 
sang,  but  the  little  which  we  have  ranks  among  the  best  produc- 
tions of  mediaeval  lyric  poetry;  even  in  the  present  day  the 
simple  words  appeal  forcibly  to  our  hearts,  and  the  conventional 
forms  of  chivalrous  intercourse  prove  no  hindrance  to  our  appre- 
ciation. 

Woman's  love  is  represented  in  these  early  poems  as  quite 
different  in  character  from  man's.  The  social  supre-  Tlie  early 
macy  of  noble  women  is  not  yet  recognised,  and  the  Minne- 
man  woos  with  proud  self-respect :  '  I  will  share  joy  sheers, 
and  sorrow  with  thee ;  so  long  as  I  live  thou  shall  remain  dear  to 
me,  for  I  would  not  wish  thee  to  love  a  bad  man.'  Another  refuses 
himself  to  a  woman  who  desired  his  love.  A  third  warns  his  mis- 
tress, whom  he  loves  secretly,  to  hide  her  real  self  from  the  world 
like  a  star  in  the  clouds,  and  to  pretend  to  let  her  eyes  rest  favour- 
ably on  others.  A  fourth  boasts  of  his  triumphs :  '  Women,'  says 
he,  '  are  as  easily  tamed  as  falcons.'  Sometimes  a  lady  is 
introduced  by  a  slight  description,  and  then  made  to  express 
her  sentiments,  as  in  the  poem  attributed  to  Dietmar  von  Aist, 
beginning:  'Es  stuont  ein  frouwe  alleine,  Und  warte  iiber  heide.' 
In  another  song  a  lady  tells  how  she  tamed  a  falcon,  but  he  flev 
away  from  her  and  now  wears  other  chains.  Love  of  nature  is 

o  2 


196  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  vn. 

interwoven  with  the  tender  passion ;  the  joy  of  summer  is  not 
thought  complete  without  the  lover's  presence,  and  his  love  is  com- 
pared to  the  rose. 

In    these   early   lyrics   the    women   are   tender,    devoted,  and 
anxious ;  they  alone  know  the  sorrows  and  the  tears  of  love.     But 

all  this  was  changed  as  French  influence  gradually 
Triumph  of  .. .  _  . 

French       asserted  itself  in  life  and  poetry.    Even  in  the  Austrian 

influence  in  songs  mentioned  above,  the  spies,  the  eavesdroppers 

the  later     (merker)   are   beginning   to  appear  as    the   enemies 
Minnesongs.     ,.     .,  , 

of  all  lovers,  and  secret  love  is  already  praised  as  the 

only  true  love;  Tristan  and  Isolde  became  more  and  more  the 
type  of  all  true  lovers,  and  the  relation  between  women  and  men, 
such  as  we  find  it  in  these  older  songs,  soon  became  inverted.  In 
the  later  Minnesongs  it  is  the  women  who  are  proud  and  the 
men  who  must  languish.  The  women  have  gained  the  upper 
hand,  and  the  relation  of  a  lover  to  his  lady  is  like  that  of  a 
vassal  to  his  lord :  he  must  serve  her,  and  though  he  looks  for 
a  reward  for  his  service,  yet  it  is  but  seldom  that  he  receives 
the  smallest  favour  at  her  hand.  Love  gained  in  moral  purity, 
but  love-poetry  lost  its  life  and  freshness,  and  became  mono- 
tonous and  affected,  as  in  Reinmar  von  Hagenau's  composi- 
tions (see  p.  147).  But  Bavaria  and  Austria  never  quite  followed 
the  fashion  of  the  day;  in  these  countries  popular  tradition  still 
asserted  its  power.  Wolfram's  '  Tagelieder '  with  their  epic  and 
dramatic  elements  and  their  ballad-like  character,  are  closely  related 
to  certain  popular  forms  of  song.  The  Austrian  Dietmar  von 
Dietmarvon  Aist  in  his  songs  does  at  least  sue  for  the  hand  of 
Aist.  the  lady,  towards  whom  he  assumes  the  attitude  of  a 
servant.  He  says  he  is  subject  to  her  control  as  the  ship  is  to  the 
hand  of  the  steersman  ;  his  feelings  are  more  sensitive  than  hers, 
or  at  least  he  pretends  that  they  are  ;  he  cannot  sleep  at  night,  and 
thinks  he  must  die  of  love.  But  his  wooing  never  remains  unre- 
warded; the  women  all  long  for  him,  each  grudges  him  to  the 
other,  and  he  seems  to  be  a  veritable  Don  Juan,  hurrying  from  one 
conquest  to  another. 

At  the  time  when  Dietmar  flourished,  Walther  must  have  begun 
to  write,  and  Reinmar  von  Hagenau  must  have  already  come  to 


Ch.  vii.]  Walt  lie  r  von  der  Vogelweide.  197 

Austria.     Reinmar    found   a   friendly  reception    at    the    court   of 
Vienna,  and  wrote   a   beautiful  poem  there  on  the  comparison 
death  of  Duke  Leopold  V  (1194)  in  the  form  of  a      between 
lament  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  dead  prince's  widow.  Keinmar  von 
Reinmar  exercised  a  visible  influence  on  Walther  ;  in  his 


clever  conversational  poetry  Walther  is  following  in  von  der 
Reinmar's  steps.  But  though  there  are  some  con-  Vogelweide. 
necting  links  between  them,  the  difference  between  the  two  is 
also  very  apparent.  Exaggerated  feeling  was  little  in  harmony 
with  the  healthy  common  sense  and  cheerful  wit  of  the  Austrians. 
When  Reinmar  spoke  of  cherishing  his  long,  sweet  love-sorrow 
like  a  tender  plant,  he  is  sure  to  have  excited  ridicule  in  Austria. 
And  though  Walther  follows  Reinmar's  example  in  many  points, 
though  he  says  he  does  not  weary  of  long  and  fruitless  wooing, 
though  he  calls  love  a  sweet  distress  and  a  treasure-house  of  all 
virtues,  yet  he  would  never  think  of  regarding  the  sorrow  of  love 
as  its  highest  glory.  Reinmar  writes  :  '  I  am  suing  for  that  which 
comprises  all  joys  that  a  man  can  ever  have  in  this  world  —  namely 
a  woman  ;'  but  Walther  is  not  so  absorbed  in  the  service  of  women  ; 
for  him  the  world  has  other  joys  and  duties  besides.  In  one  pas- 
sage he  directly  ridiculed  Reinmar's  sentimentality  and  the  exag- 
gerated ingenuity  of  his  style.  Reinmar  wishes  to  exalt  his  lady 
above  all  others  ;  Walther,  on  the  contrary,  says  quite  candidly  to 
his  beloved  :  '  Perhaps  others  are  better,  but  you  are  good.'  He  does 
not  wish  to  force  the  virtues  of  his  lady  upon  anyone's  attention  ; 
let  everyone  praise  his  own,  or  as  he  himself  expresses  it  :  '  If  I 
praise  here,  let  him  praise  there.' 

Reinmar's  songs  evince  no  feeling  for  nature  ;  he  never  hails  the 
spring  or  mourns  over  the  winter.     '  I  have  other  things  to  do 
than  to  lament  over  flowers/  he  says.     Walther,  on    -v^altner's 
the  contrary,  without  ever  connecting  nature  and  love    feeling  for 
in  the  conventional  way,  has  repeatedly  sung  of  the       nature. 
various  seasons   in   a   manner   always   fresh    and    original.     He 
introduces  some  human  interest  into  his  picture  of  spring,  and 
shows  us  girls  playing  at  ball  in  the  street.     One  of  the  most 
charming  of  his  spring-songs  is  his  praise  of  May  ('Muget  ir  schowen 
waz  dem  meien  wunders  1st  beschert?').     Another  poem  of  his 


198  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  vn. 

describes  how  the  flowers  peer  up  from  the  grass  on  a  summer's 
morning  and  smile  at  the  rising  sun ;  but  fairer  than  all  the  glories 
of  spring,  says  the  poet,  is  a  beautiful  woman. 

Reinmar  is  one  of  those  poets  who  impoverish  their  poetry  by 
their  one-sided  taste ;  Walther's  lyrics,  on  the  contrary,  are  more 
rich  and  varied  than  those  of  any  other  Middle  High-German  poet. 
Walther  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  Reinmar  as  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach  does  to  Gottfried  von  Strassburg.  Gottfried  was  also 
prevented  by  his  conventionalism  from  doing  full  justice  to  his 
subject ;  but  Walther  and  Wolfram  appropriated  the  whole  wealth 
of  their  predecessors,  and  were  always  successful  in  putting  a  new 
stamp  on  the  old  gold,  or  in  giving  it  a  new  setting.  According  to 
Walther's  own  testimony,  Reinmar  seems  to  have  felt  the  same  enmity 
towards  him  as  Gottfried  did  towards  Wolfram.  And  as  Wolfram  put 
his  adversary  to  shame  by  his  generous  praises  of  him,  so  Walther 
too  sang  a  dirge  for  Reinmar,  which  for  truthfulness,  sincerity,  justice, 
and  earnest  feeling  ranks  among  his  grandest  compositions. 

How  close  the  connection  may  have  been  between  Walther  and 
•Wolfram  and  Wolfram  we  cannot  say ;  at  all  events  they  were  ac- 
Waither.  quainted  with  each  other,  and  recognised  each  other's 
merits.  Each  quotes  from  the  other's  works,  and  Walther  has 
written  a  '  Tagelied '  in  Wolfram's  manner.  Walther,  like  Wolfram, 
is  full  of  a  noble  self-respect  both  in  life  and  love.  He  speaks 
quite  openly  of  his  '  rich  art,'  and  constantly  dwells  on  the  fact  that 
he  gives  others  pleasure  by  his  songs,  that  no  one  can  praise  a  lady 
better  than  he,  and  that  her  fame  depends  on  his  praise.  But 
Walther's  writings  have  not  the  splendour,  the  rich  imagery,  the 
ever  fresh  originality  of  his  Bavarian  countryman.  His  love-poems 
contain  many  thoughts  and  incidents  which  we  also  meet  with  in 
Friedrich  von  Hausen,  Reinmar,  and  others.  He  is  also  indirectly 
a  disciple  of  the  troubadours,  and  we  can  seldom  or  never  discover 
in  his  writings  with  certainty  where  tradition  ends,  and  independent 
development  begins. 

Many  of  Walther's  poems  show  no  striking  originality,  but  his 
•Walther's  peculiar  talent  is  seen  at  once  in  such  a  poem  as 

lyrics.  tnaj  where  he  narrates  a  dialogue  between  a  knight 
and  his  lady,  a  regular  tournament  of  words ;  or  that  in 


ch.  vii.]  WaltJier  von  der   Vogelweide.  199 

which  he  represents  Fortune  distributing  her  gifts,  but  persistently 
turning  her  back  on  him.  He  seizes  on  the  old  idea  that 
the  body  is  the  garment  of  the  man,  and  turns  it  to  account  in 
praising  his  lady.  He  has  never  seen  a  more  beautiful  robe  than 
hers  :  wisdom  and  good  fortune  are  embroidered  upon  it. 

Friedrich  von  Hausen  in  his  earliest  and  shortest  song  tells 
of  the  happiness  of  love  which  he  has  enjoyed  in  a  dream,  and 
reproaches  his  waking  eyes  for  robbing  him  of  it.  One  of 
Walther's  poems  also  describes  how,  in  a  dream,  he  met  a  girl 
going  to  the  dance,  and  presented  her  with  a  wreath,  how 
she  granted  him  happiness,  and  how  since  then  he  has  sought  her 
everywhere.  This  whole  poem  was  evidently  meant  to  be  sung  to 
dancing. 

The  incident  of  a  girl  telling  of  a  secret  meeting  with  her  lover 
had  aKo  been  turned  to  account  by  earlier  poets :  but  Walther's 
song,  '  Unter  der  Linde  an  der  Heide/  stands  alone  in  its  naivete, 
grace,  and  roguish  fun.  We  are  almost  inclined  to  declare  it  the 
most  beautiful  song  in  the  whole  poetry  of  the  Minnesingers,  so 
full  is  it  of  life  and  variety. 

Walther   everywhere   gives   us   dramatic   situation   and   action. 
He  contrasts  favourably  with  Petrarch,  who,  though          _      , 
he  took  so  much  trouble  to  hand  down  the  beauty     dramatio 
of  his   Laura    to  posterity,  yet   never   gets   beyond       power, 
a  tedious  enumeration  of  her  charms.     Petrarch  never  gives  us 
a  clear  portrait  of  his   lady ;  but  Walther's  '  red  lips  with  their 
loving  smile '  ('  der  rothe  Mund  der  so  minniglich  lachet ')  at  once 
bring   a   picturS   before    us.     Walther   is   sparing   in   statements 
about  the  outward  appearance  of  the  ladies  of  whom  he  sings, 
and    prefers    to  show  them   us   engaged   in   action,  or  in  some 
particular  situation :  getting  out  of  the  bath,  or  going  to  church ; 
or  he  shows  us  a  noble  lady  in  full  dress,  going  with  her  suite 
into  society,  and  only  now  and   then  casting   a  modest   glance 
around  her.     Walther  knows  how  to  introduce  into  such  descriptions 
that  grace  which  he  prizes  higher  than  beauty. 

Throughout  all  his  poems  it  is  Walther's  realism  and  power  of 
graphic  description  that  charm  us.  But  his  special  talent  lies  in 
imaginative  treatment.  He  pictures  the  outer  world  in  the  most 


200  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  VII. 

vivid  way,  and  invests  it  with  a  peculiar  charm ;  at  the  same  time 
he  also  clothes  spiritual  states  with  the  appearance  of  the  visible 
world,  and  thus  imparts  to  his  reflections  a  poetical  and  tangible 
body.  The  life  of  the  soul,  however,  is  grasped  by  him  through 
reflection  only.  The  whole  world  of  sentiment  was  a  country  un- 
discovered by  the  poetry  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  described  only 
from  a  distance.  Inward  states  and  phases  of  the  soul  are  analysed 
here  and  there,  both  in  lyric  and  epic  poetry,  and  the  epic  poetry 
in  particular  possesses  splendid  expressions  for  translating  them 
into  real  action ;  a  few  of  the  Nibelungen  songs,  '  Gudrun '  and 
Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  attain  the  highest  excellence  in  this 
respect.  Walther  possesses  the  same  talent,  but  he  is  seldom  able 
to  grant  us  a  direct  glance  into  his  own  soul.  If  he  does  some- 
times move  us  by  his  simple  words,  like  those  old  Austrian  lyrics, 
yet  he  soon  passes  into  reflections,  which  appeal  pleasantly  to  the 
intellect,  but  do  not  move  the  heart. 

Germany  has  no  lyric  poet  before  Goethe  who  can  be  compared 
with  Walther,  and  among  the  mediaeval  lyric  poets  of  other  coun- 
Waither's  tr^es  ne  yields  the  palm  to  none.  The  lyric  poetry  of 
superiority  the  Middle  Ages  has  been  chiefly  represented  to  later 
to  Petrarch.  tjmes  by  petrarch.  Petrarch  was  the  successor 
of  the  Troubadours,  and  the  authority  which  they  had  formerly 
enjoyed  passed  over,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Renaissance,  to  this 
scholar-poet.  Yet  Walther  deserved  much  more  than  Petrarch  to 
exercise  his  influence  on  posterity,  and  continue  to  live  in  future 
ages.  How  great  is  Walther's  variety,  compared  with  the  mono- 
tony of  Petrarch!  Petrarch  collects  the  richest  *  ornaments  from 
Mythology,  from  antique  and  mediaeval  love-poetry,  and  fits 
them  carefully  together  like  mosaic,  to  form  new  pictures ;  but  his 
conceits  quickly  pall  upon  us.  Walther,  on  the  contrary,  is  almost 
as  simple  in  his  manner  as  the  Middle  High-German  popular  epics; 
he  only  adorns  his  poetry  with  that  which  nature  offers  in  all  times 
and  places :  bright  blossoms,  and  green  branches,  things  which 
•Walther's  never  grow  old.  And  the  best  thing  which  he  gives 
character,  us  is  himself:  a  man  such  as  one  would  desire  for  a 
friend,  transparently  sincere  in  his  whole  character,  a  gentle, 
serious,  and  strong  soul,  with  a  bright  lovable  manner,  rejoicing 


Ch.  vii.]  Minncsang  and  Meister sang.  201 

with  them  that  rejoice,  weeping  with  them  that  weep,  inclined  from 
childhood  to  be  hopeful,  unwavering  in  his  lofty  aspirations,  fresh 
and  cheerful  even  in  want,  thankful  in  happiness,  gloomy  only  in 
his  old  age,  and  this  with  some  cause,  for  the  spring  and  summer 
of  the  Minnesang  were  past,  and  Walther  felt  the  coming  autumn. 

MlNNESANG   AND   MEISTERSANG. 

A  beautiful  monument  was  raised  in  the  fourteenth  century  to 
the  German  Minnesang.  A  manuscript,  now  in  Paris  manu- 
Paris,  and  which  was  probably  prepared  originally  script  of 
in  Switzerland,  contains  the  songs  of  140  German  Mmnesongs. 
poets  from  the  twelfth  to  the  fourteenth  centuries.  At  the  head 
of  the  collection  stand  the  two  Minnesingers  of  the  house  of 
Hohenstaufen,  Henry  VI  and  Conrad  the  Younger,  i.e.  Conradin. 
The  kings  are  followed  by  the  higher  and  lower  nobility,  and 
these  in  turn  by  the  bourgeois  poets.  Nearly  every  poet  has 
a  picture ;  these  pictures  are  of  course  not  authentic  portraits, 
but  they  give  us  a  succession  of  scenes  drawn  from  the 
life  of  chivalry:  pictures  of  war  and  tender  domestic  scenes, 
pictures  of  love-incidents  and  of  all  the  varied  interests  of  chival- 
rous life.  Heinrich  von  Veldeke  is  sitting  on  a  grassy  mound, 
with  the  birds  gathered  round  him  and  flowers  blossoming  at 
his  feet.  Friedrich  von  Hausen  is  in  a  boat  and  pointing  to 
a  sheet  of  paper  which  is  floating  on  the  waves,  doubtless  his 
greeting  to  his  lady.  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  is  sitting 
upon  a  stone,  deep  in  thought,  in  accordance  with  the  descrip- 
tion in  one  of  his  songs  ('  Ich  sass  auf  einem  Steine ').  Wolfram 
von  Eschenbach  stands  fully  armed  with  closed  visor,  by  the  side 
of  his  saddled  horse,  as  if  on  the  point  of  mounting. 

Unfortunately   the    manuscript    gives    no    melodies.      It    has 

thus  only  preserved  one  half  of  that  art  bv  which 
,         ,_.          .  .      ,  Minnesongs 

the     Minnesingers    exercised    such    a     strong    in-      always 

fluence    on    their    contemporaries.     For    all    these  accompanied 
poems  used  to  be  sung;    they  appeared   from    the         by  a 
first  before  the  public  together  with  a  melody,  gener- 
ally composed  by  the  poet  himself.     Many  of  Walther's  '  Spriiche ' 


202  Poet  and  Preacher.  [ch.  vn. 

consisting  only  of  one  verse  had  the  same  melody,  and  some 

poets  always  made  use  of  one  particular  melody.     But  in  songs 

of  many   verses,    the   tune,  which   was  repeated   from   verse   to 

verse,  was  generally  used  for  one  song  only,  and  thus  every  new 

song  implied  a  new  melody.     But  it  was  not  only  the  melody, 

Great        ^ut  a^so  t^ie  metr^ca^  construction  of  the  verse  which 

variety       was  different  in  each  song.     Middle   High-German 

of  metrical  lyric  poetry  possessed  a  variety  of  metrical  forms 
and  artifices  of  rhyming  quite  unknown  to  modern 
poetry.  The  power  of  metrical  and  musical  invention  was  seen 
in  its  highest  development  in  the  form  of  poetry  called  a  '  Leich/ 
in  which  various  forms  of  verse  and  melody  succeed  each  other. 
The  '  Leich'  is  the  show-piece  of  the  Minnesang ;  at  first  it  was 
always  serious  and  solemn,  later  on  it  sometimes  assumed  a  gay 
and  frivolous  character. 

The  songs  of  some  Minnesingers,  when  read  in  succession, 
seem  to  form  a  little  romance,  but  we  learn  little  of  the  actual 
incidents  which  gave  rise  to  the  poems.  One  poet  alone,  the 
Styrian  knight  Ulrich  von  Lichtenstein,  has  written  down  the 
story  of  his  romance,  and  in  so  doing  has  given  us  a  picture  of 
the  brilliant  life  of  chivalry.  But  with  this  one  exception,  we 
learn  more  of  what  that  life  must  have  been  from  the  paintings 
of  the  Paris  manuscript  than  from  the  poems  which  it  contains. 

Ulrich  von   Ulrich's  'Frauendienst'  (Service  of  Ladies)  contains 

Lichten-  the  history  of  his  love  experiences,  while  his  '  Frauen- 
Btein's  'Frail-  buch ,  getg  f  ^  th  ^^  Q{  ^  ^  f  chiyaj 

endienst '  * 

and 'Frauen- Ulrich's   poems   are  inserted   in   his  'Frauendienst' 

buch.'  wherever  they  originated  in  the  course  of  his  love. 
From  1222  to  1255  he  gives  us  a  candid  record  of  his  wooing 
and  mourning,  his  hopes  and  disappointments,  but  he  is  carefully 
silent  about  his  happiness.  He  was  a  superficial  man  of  the 
world,  who  enumerates  the  following  as  the  five  greatest  sources 
of  joy  to  a  man :  beautiful  women,  good  food,  fine  horses,  rich 
clothing,  and  a  beautiful  ornament  on  the  helmet.  He  has  served 
two  ladies,  and  there  was  no  folly  which  he  was  not  capable  of 
performing  for  their  sakes.  He  was  a  slave  to  those  conventional 
laws  of  society  against  which  Wolfram  rebelled.  The  romance 


Ch.  vii.]  Minnesang  and  Meistersang.  203 

of  Tristan  and  Isolde  was  the  model  on  which  he  expressly  based 
his  actions,  and  by  making  himself  a  Tristan  he  thought  to  win 
an  Isolde.  Thus,  because  Tristan  once  appeared  among  lepers, 
Ulrich  also  mixes  in  their  company.  Every  wish  or  hint  of  his 
lady's  was  a  command  to  him;  when  she  remarked  that  his 
mouth  did  not  please  her,  he  had  it  operated  on  to  give  it  a 
better  shape,  and  he  mentions  many  other  follies  of  the  same 
kind  which  he  committed.  In  spite  of  his  devotion  Ulrich  was 
continually  getting  the  worst  of  it,  and  once  even  his  life  was 
endangered.  But  nothing  daunts  him,  and  the  smallest  token 
of  his  lady's  favour  consoles  him  for  the  worst  trick  that  has 
been  played  upon  him.  For  one  lady  he  undertakes  an  expedition 
through  the  land  as  Lady  Venus,  and  measures  his  strength  with 
all  the  knights  whom  he  meets  on  the  way.  For  another  he 
travels  through  the  land  as  King  Arthur.  And  all  these  follies 
are  committed  by  a  married  man,  the  father  of  several  children. 
We  learn  quite  by  the  way  of  the  existence  of  his  family, 
and  the  fact  somewhat  surprises  us,  for  he  has  said  not  a  word 
about  his  marriage ;  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  his  '  Service  of 
Ladies.' 

Though  the  style  of  the  memoirs  themselves  is  not  remarkable, 
some  of  the  poems  which  are  introduced  are  very  beautiful ;  they 
show  tenderness  of  thought,  melody,  flowing  diction,  and  great 
facility  in  difficult  arts  of  rhyming.  But  nothing  else  comes  up 
to  the  beauty  of  this  one  stanza : — 

In  dem  Walde  siisse  Tone 
Singen  kleine  Vogelein ; 
An  der  Heide  Blumen  schone 
Bluhen  in  des  Maien  Schein. 
Also  bliiht  mein  hoher  Muth 
Wenn  er  denkt  au  deren  Giite, 
Die  mir  reich  macht  mein  Gemiithe 
Wie  der  Traum  den  Armen  thut. 

Walther,  as  we  noticed,  was  fond  of  comparisons  between 
the  appearances  of  nature  and  human  feelings,  and  Ulrich's 
Minnesongs  may  be  considered  an  echo  of  Walther's  love- 
lyrics. 

The  connection  with  the  great  master  of  mediaeval  lyric  poetry 


204  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Cb.  vn. 

is  still  closer  in  Minnesingers  like  Ulrich  von  Singenberg,  Rubin, 
Ulrich       and  others ;   and  Reinmar  von  Zweter  is  his  worthiest 
successor  as  a  writer  of  '  Spriiche.'     Reinmar  was 

^orn   on  l^e  ^n'ne>   anc*  £rew  UP  m  Austria;    he 
lived  at  the  Austrian,  Bohemian,  and  Danish  courts. 
Between    1230  and   1250  he   discussed  in  one  special  form  of 
Beinmar      '  Spruch  '  almost  all  the  problems  of  life,  treating  them 
von         all  with  great  seriousness  and  in  a  graphic  and  con- 
Zweter.      cjge  stv]e_     jje  wrote  riddles,  stories  (Lugenmarchen), 
short  fables,  and  tales,  like  the  minstrels  before  Walther.    He  praises 
marriage  and  the  moral  power  of  love,  and  compares  a  beautiful 
woman  to  the  Grail,  saying  that  he  who  wishes  to  win  her  must  be 
pure  as  the  guardian  of  the  Grail.     He  laments  the  decay  of 
chivalrous  culture,  the  worldliness  of  the  monasteries,  the  increase 
of  drunkenness  and  dice-playing,  the  degeneration  of  the  tourna- 
ments, which  were  no   longer  chivalrous  (r  tiler  Itch),  but    brutal 
(rinderlicft),  injuring  the  body  and  endangering  the  life  of  those 
who  took  part  in  them. 

The  Minnesang  in  its  first  beginnings  had  shown  a  strong  ten- 
dency to  follow  French  models,  but  in  its  further  development 
there  are  no  visible  traces  of  Western  influence.  Walther  did  not 
directly  follow  any  Proven9al  or  Northern  French  models,  and 
though  his  Minnesang  indirectly  owed  its  origin  to  these,  yet  he 
preserved  his  loyalty  to  the  national  poetry,  not  only  in  his  '  Spriiche,' 
but  also  in  his  love-lyrics.  Such  a  poem  as  the  graceful  dance- 
song  mentioned  above,  in  which  he  describes  his  pleasant  dream, 
directly  resembles  in  character  the  popular  dance-songs  which 
were  in  vogue  in  Bavaria  and  Austria.  Walther  in  this  poem 
pointed  out  the  path  which  was  afterwards  pursued  by 

Neidhart  tfa    Bavarian  kni  ht  Nddhart  von  Reuenthal.     But 

von 

Beuenthai,  it  seems  that  Walther  did  not  approve  of  Neidhart's 

beginning  new  departure,  for  we  find  him  lamenting  that  a  form 

3th       of  poetry  which  was  of  peasant   origin  had  found 
century.  t 

much  favour  at  the  great  courts,  and  had  driven 
away  the  right  kind  of  song.  Perhaps  along  with  the  rustic 
dance-songs,  rough  and  noisy  country-dances  may  have  been 
introduced,  which  supplanted  the  refined  merriment  of  the 


Ch.  vii.]  Minnesang  and  Meistersang,  205 

golden  age  of  chivalry.  Neidhart  von  Reuenthal  lived  at  the 
Bavarian  and  Austrian  courts  till  1240,  and  became  known  to 
the  German  public  about  the  second  decade  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  He  wrote  no  true  Minnesongs,  i.e.  pofcrns  courting  the 
favour  of  some  noble  lady ;  his  characteristic  works  were  dance- 
songs,  which  with  their  brightness  and  humour,  and,  as  we  may 
doubtless  add,  with  their  attractive  tunes,  made  their  His  dance- 
way  all  over  Germany,  in  the  same  manner  as  the  songs. 
valses  of  Strauss  and  Lanner  have  done  in  our  own  century. 
These  dance-songs  fall  into  two  quite  separate  groups :  Summer- 
songs  for  dances  in  the  open  air,  and  Winter-songs  for  dances  in 
the  house.  The  former  are  more  dramatic,  the  latter  more  epic 
in  character.  The  Summer-songs  open  with  a  description  of 
spring,  and  an  invitation  to  merriment,  to  a  dance  under  the 
linden-tree  or  to  a  game  of  ball  in  the  street,  and  this  is  generally 
followed  by  a  dialogue.  In  the  Winter-songs  the  lament  about 
winter  is  succeeded  by  a  short  anecdote,  usually  of  a  satirical 
character.  In  many  of  these  songs  Neidhart  appears  in  person 
in  intercourse  with  the  peasants.  The  dialogues  in  the  spring- 
songs  are  very  charming,  and  these  songs  are  most  probably 
based  on  popular  dance-songs  of  similar  construction  and  with 
similar  motives.  Sometimes  two  girls  converse  together  and  open 
their  hearts  to  each  other.  Generally  the  song  is  in  the  form  of 
a  dialogue  between  mother  and  daughter ;  the  girl  wishes  to  go 
to  the  dance  and  the  mother  warns  her  against  its  dangers,  and 
even  tries  to  prevent  her  by  force  from  going ;  or  it  is  the  old 
mother  who  is  seized  with  a  passion  for  dancing,  and  the  daughter 
tries  in  vain  to  dissuade  her  from  her  folly.  In  all  these  songs  it 
is  the  girl  who  longs  and  pines,  while  the  knight  is  a  happy  lover, 
as  in  the  old  Austrian  improvised  songs. 

The  Winter-songs,  on  the  contrary,  are  written  in  the  sighing 
and  languishing  tone  of  the  later  Minnesongs.  In  them 
the  knight  is  unhappy  and  scorned,  and  the  peasant-girl, 
whom  he  woos,  lets  him  languish.  Whereas  in  the  Summer-songs 
the  knight  is  superior  to  the  peasants,  here  it  is  the  peasants  who 
get  the  better  of  the  knight.  The  knight  revenges  himself  by 
ridicule  and  by  satirical  stories,  in  which  he  either  calls  up  events 


206  Poet  and  Preacher.  [ch.  vn. 

of  the  past  summer,  and  alludes  to  the  rough  fun  of  the  dance, 
or  scoffs  at  the  quarrels  and  fightings  of  the  peasants,  at  their 
hatred  of  the  knights  or  their  luxury  in  dress.  These  satirical 
elements  may  have  been  imitated  from  the  popular  lampoons 
which  the  peasants  were  wont  to  use  as  weapons  against  each 

other.     Neidhart's  poetic  attacks  were  answered  by 
Enmity  .  .  _,. 

between     rustlc  poets  in  the  same  tone.     The  enmity  between 

Neidhart     them  is  quite  serious,  for  Neidhart's  songs  are  really 

and  the      an  expression  of  the  hostility  between  the  rich  and 

insolent   peasant-class   in  Austria  and  Bavaria,  and 

the  poor  nobles,  who  grudged  them   their   luxury.      As   far   as 

the  sixteenth  century  Neidhart  lived  on  in  popular  poetry  and  in 

the  memory  of  the  Germans  as  the  enemy  of  the  peasants,  now 

victorious  over  his  adversaries,  now  duped  by  them.     His  style 

of  writing  was  much   imitated.     Even  in  his  own  poems   there 

is  a  great  deal  of  coarse  fun,  and  in  the  end  this  whole  class  of 

poetry  owed  its  extinction  to  its  entire  absorption  in  grossness. 

Bavarian    productiveness    in  the  province   of  the    Minnesang 

was  not  exhausted  in  Neidhart's  poetry.     The  Ba- 

Tannhiiuser.  J 

vanan  district  also  produced  the  poet  Tannhauser, 
a  member  of  the  Salzburg  family  of  Tannhusen,  and  a  thoroughly 
original  character. 

Tannhauser  led  a  wandering  life  from  about  1240  to  1270, 

staying  at  the  Bavarian,  Austrian,  and  other   courts,  and   even 

visiting   Eastern  lands  in  the  course   of  his  travels.     He  scoffs 

at  the  service  of  love,  by  making  fun  of  the  impossible  things 

H  which    ladies    require    of   their    lovers.     His    lady, 

character     he  says,  will  be   gracious  to  him,  if  he  will  divert 

of  his       the  course  of  the  Rhine,  so  that  it  shall  not  flow 

poetry.      ^^    (^oyentZj   jf    ne    wj]i    bring    her    sand    from 

the  lake  in  which  the  sun   goes   to   rest,   if  he  will  deprive  the 

moon  of  its  light,  if  he  can  fly  like   a   starling,  can  use  up   a 

thousand  spears,  if  he  will  fetch  her  the  salamander  out  of  the 

fire — and  so  on.     Tannhauser,  like  many  humourists,  produces 

his  effects  by  heaping  up  analogous  expressions  in  a  lively  flow 

ol  bombastic  language ;  and,  like  other  humourists,  he  uses  the 

opportunity  to  display  his  wide  knowledge  and  reading.    Sometimes 


Ch.  vii.]  Minnesang  and  Meistersang.  207 

he  introduces  numbers  of  foreign  words  to  designate  common 
things,  apparently  meaning  to  ridicule  the  German  affectation  of 
everything  foreign.  He  is  most  delicious  in  those  passages  where 
he  allows  us  a  glimpse  into  the  wretched  state  of  his  own  affairs, 
and  tells  us  how  Sir  Want  'Mangel],  Sir  Donothing  (Schajfenichts), 
and  Sir  Seldomrich  (SefanretcA),  are  continual  inmates  of  his 
house ;  how  his  property  has  been  mortgaged  for  the  sake  of 
beautiful  women,  good  wine,  dainty  food,  and  a  bath  twice  a  week. 
He  is  charming,  too,  when  he  pretends  to  be  making  riddles, 
which  are,  however,  only  meant  as  nonsense,  or  finally  in  his 
'  Tanzleiche,'  where  he  relates  love-adventures  as  though  they 
were  his  own  experiences,  and  then  invites  people  to  the  dance 
till  a  string  of  his  fiddle  breaks,  which  is  the  usual  ending  to 
the  poem. 

Ulrich  von  Lichtenstein  had  practically  reduced  the  service  of 
ladies  to  an  absurdity ;  Neidhart  brought  it  down  to  the  peasants, 
and  Tannhauser  turned  it  to  ridicule.  Each  one  of  these  poets 
was  instrumental  in  bringing  about  the  decay  of  the  pure  Minne- 
sang. And  in  fact,  in  Austria  and  Bavaria  the  genuine  Minnesang 
hardly  maintained  itself  till  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century; 
a  love-poet  like  Hadamar  von  Laber  no  longer  made  use  of 
this  form  of  poetry.  The  Allemannic  poets  remained  faithful 
to  it  a  little  longer.  Henry,  the  unfortunate  son  of  Frederick  II, 

who  lost  his  life  in  a  rebellion  against  his  father, 

...  ,.  Burkard 

gathered  round  him  at  his  court  in  Swabia,  about         von 

the  year  1230,  a  circle  of  young  and  gay  nobles,    Hohenfels 
amongst  whom  Burkard  von  Hohenfels  and  Gottfried  and  Gottfried 
•vr  T  j-  *•        •  i     j  mi     •     von  Neifen. 

von    Neifen    were    distinguished    as    poets.      Their 

writings  betray  the  influence  of  Neidhart  and  of  the  popular 
poetry.  Both  of  them  frequently  introduce  the  popular  device 
of  a  refrain.  They  not  only  wrote  popular  dance-songs,  but 
Neifen  also  imitated  the  popular  cradle-song,  and  the  short  ballad, 
as  far  as  it  dealt  with  matters  of  love. 

Other  poets,  especially  those  from  Switzerland  and  Alsace, 
introduce  us  to  the  circle  of  Rudolf  von  Habsburg.  Many  of 
them  were  in  the  army  with  which  he  set  out  to  invade  Austria. 
One  of  these  was  Steimar  of  Thurgau,  who  wrote  on  till  1294, 


ao8  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  vn. 

and  composed  beautiful  and  serious  Minnesongs  in  simple 
and  almost  popular  forms.  But  his  practical  na- 
ture did  not  feel  quite  at  home  in  the  ideal 
sphere  of  the  Minnesong.  In  one  poem,  for  instance,  which 
begins  quite  seriously,  he  suddenly  permits  himself  this  absurd 
simile  :  '  My  heart  moves  up  and  down  like  a  pig  in  a  sack, 
and  it  is  wilder  than  a  dragon  through  its  wish  to  fly  to  my 
beloved.'  The  state  of  things  which  he  describes  soon  became 
wearisome  to  the  poet,  and  he  gave  up  his  hopeless  languish- 
ings.  He  changed  his  tone,  and  wrote  a  song  in  praise  of 
autumn  and  also  an  eating  and  drinking  .song,  in  which  he 
calls  upon  the  host  to  produce  fish,  geese,  fowls,  swine,  sausages, 
peacocks,  and  foreign  wines,  and  himself  prepares  to  devour  a 
large  goose  at  a  sitting.  Like  Neidhart  and  others,  he  seeks 
out  a  peasant-sweetheart,  whom  he  woos  by  presents  of  clothes. 
He  introduced  the  old  form  of  the  '  Tagelied '  into  the  sphere  of 
rustic  life. 

Thus   in  Allemannia,  as  in   Bavaria   and  Austria,  the  refined 

Minnesang  gave  place  to  a  coarser  kind  of  lyric  poetry.     But  the 

sentimental  song  of  the  old  conventional  type  continued  to  exist 

Werner      ^  tne  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century.     One  of 

von         the  last  of  the  Allemannic  Minnesingers  was  Werner 

Homberg.    von  Homberg,  Henry  the  Seventh's  general  in  Italy, 

and  one  of  the  most  celebrated  swordsmen  of  his  time.     He  died 

in  1320,  whilst  besieging  Genoa,  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-six. 

Meanwhile  the  Minnesang  had  spread  over  a  wide  territory  in 
the  North,  but  poetry  in  general  did  not  reap  much  advantage 
Princely     from    this.     German   Minnesongs   were   written    by 
Minne-      King  Wenzel  of  Bohemia,  a  son  of  that  Ottokar  who 
singers.      succumbed  before  the  arms  of  Rudolf  von  Habsburg. 
Margrave  Otto  IV  of  Brandenburg  (1266-1308),  Duke  Henry  IV 
of  Breslau  (1270-1292),   and   Prince   Wizlaw  of  Riigen  (1320 
-1325),   all    of  them    princes   reigning    on    old    Slavonic   soil, 
were    not   merely    patrons    of    the   poetic    art,   but   also   them- 
selves Minnesingers.     Of  these  Wizlaw  was  the  best.     He  wrote 
'  SprQche '    and    love-songs    in    a   fresh    and    jovial    style,   and 
his   praise    of  Autumn   and    its    gifts    reminds   us    of    Sieimar. 


Ch.vii.]  Minnesang  and  Meistersang.  209 

But  by  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century  all  this  poetic 
activity   had   died  away  in  the  North  as  elsewhere.       Decay 
The   practice  of  the   poetic   art  by  nobles  became       of  the 
more  and  more  rare,  the  service  of  ladies  decayed,    Minnesang 
and  the  wooing  of  the  one  beloved  lady  gave  place      c°ose  of 
to  a  bare  praise  of  women  in  general.     Secular  lyrics      the  13th 
retired   into  the  background ;    religious  hymns  and      century, 
pedantic  Spruch-poetry  became  more  and  more  predominant   in 
the  course  of  the  thirteenth  century;  the  Minnesang  was  trans- 
formed into  Meistersang. 

The  ordinary  gleemen,  the  '  Gumpelmanner,'  mechanical  poets 
who  travelled  about  like  journeymen  of  a  trade,  and  who  were 
ready  to  write  either  eulogies  or  censures  to  order,       poetry 
greatly  increased  in  number  during  the  course  of  the      becomes 
thirteenth  century ;  and  this  increase  is  a  strong  proof  increasingly 
of  the  growing  power  of  that  popular  poetry,  whose      pop    ar' 
influence   we   have    already  pointed   out   in   the   history   of  the 
Minnesang. 

But  above  these  gleemen  there  was  a  class  of  wandering  singers 
of  a  somewhat  higher  rank,  more  educated  and  with  more  claims 
to   respect ;    they  called   themselves  '  Masters,'    and         ip^Q 
later  on  '  Mastersingers.'      These  poets  had  received      Master- 
school  instruction;    they  sought   admittance   at   the      "ngers. 
princely  courts,  and  in  fact  carried  on  the  tradition  of  that  lyric 
poetry  which  had  been  developed  by  Walther  von  dei  Vogelweide 
and  his  predecessors.     The  actual  tunes  of  some  of  their  poems 
have  been  preserved  to  us,  and  the  traditions  of  their  art,  together 
with  its  technical  terms,  were  treasured  up  by  the  later  Master- 
singers.     Thus  we   learn,  for  instance,  that  a   compound  stanza 
was   made  up  of  two   equal    parts,    called    '  Stollen,'    and   one 
unequal  part,    the  'Abgesang'   (descant);    and   from   the   music 
which  has  been  preserved  to  us,  we  see  that  the  'descant'  often 
led  back  into  the  melody  of  the  '  Stollen,'  so  that  the  whole  con- 
struction coincided  in  a  remarkable  manner  with  the  form  of  our 
Sonata.     One   of  these  singers  called   Marner  tried 
his  hand  at  all  the  various  forms  of  German  lyrics, 
and  excelled  brides  in  the  art  of  writing    Latin   poetry.      He 

p 


210  Poet  and  Preacher.  [ch.  VH. 

belonged  to  the  school  of  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  and  was 
at  the  same  time  a  follower  of  the  Arch-poet.  His  poetical 
career  lasted  forty  or  fifty  years ;  he  continued  to  write  till  about 
1270,  and  composed  Minnesongs,  'Tagelieder,'  dance-songs  and 
'  Spriiche '  in  great  variety,  including  fables,  stories  (Lttgenmarchen), 
riddles,  prayers,  songs  in  praise  of  the  Virgin,  and  political  poems ; 
besides  these,  he  also  used  to  recite  songs  taken  from  the  heroic 
legends,  and  he  complains  that  the  public  will  listen  to  nothing  else. 
Unfortunately  the  wealth  and  variety  of  the  early  Master- 
singers  was  not  continued  in  their  successors;  we  notice  their 
power  visibly  declining,  their  sympathy  with  public  life  diminish- 
ing, and  religious  subjects  coming  more  and  more  to  the  fore 
in  their  poems.  They  parade  their  learning,  and  think  they  show 
depth  of  thought  in  being  enigmatical  and  obscure.  It  was  among 
these  later  singers  that  the  poem  of  the  '  Wartburg-krieg '  was  pro- 
duced. One  of  these  '  Masters,'  the  celebrated  Heinrich  von 

Meissen,  called  '  Frauenlob,'  occupies  much  the  same 
Heinrich 

von         position  in  lyric  poetry  as  that  held  by  Albrecht  von 

Meissen,     Scharfenberg,  the  author  of  the  later  '  Titurel,'  in  the 

called       provmce  of  tne  epic<     From  about  1270,  Frauenlob 
'Frauenlob. 

led  a  wandering  life,  roving  over  the  whole  of  Ger- 
many ;  but  after  1311  he  permanently  settled  in  Mainz,  where 
he  died  in  1318.  He  had  a  poetic  contest  with  the  worthy 
Mastersinger  Regenbogen,  on  a  subject  which  had  been  already 
debated  by  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  namely,  the  question 
whether  'Weib'  (wife)  or'Frau'  (lady)  be  the  more  honourable  title 
for  women.  Walther  had  declared  himself  in  favour  of  'Weib;' 
'Wife  must  always  be  the  highest  title  for  a  woman,'  he  says. 
Regenbogen  also  defended  the  word  'Weib,'  while  Frauenlob 
decided  for  '  Frau,'  and  hence  derived  his  nickname.  Frauenlob 
pays  the  deepest  homage  to  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  sings  her 
praises  with  much  display  of  bombastic  obscurity.  He  is  puffed 
up  with  conceit,  and  speaks  in  a  disparaging  tone  of  the  older 
poets.  But  both  he  and  all  the  other  Masters  contemporary 
with  him  only  worked  on  the  old  stock  of  poetic  material,  and 
did  not  do  anything  to  increase  the  store.  Almost  all  of  them 
lament  the  decay  of  morals,  the  disturbed  times,  the  decline  of 


Ch.  vii.]  Minnescwg  and  Meistersang.  an 

art,  the  stinginess  of  the  nobles;  Rudolf  von  Habsburg  is  espe- 
cially attacked  for  his  meanness.  Almost  all  of  them  are  jealous 
of  their  fellow-poets,  with  whom  they  have  to  share  the  favour  or 
disfavour  of  the  public.  Only  two  of  these  early  '  Masters '  deserve 
to  be  singled  out  from  the  rest :  the  '  wild  Alexander/  a  South- 
German  poet,  and  Hadlaub  of  Zurich,  who  lived  about  the  year  1 300. 

The  wild  Alexander  wrote  a  song  containing  a  charming  picture 
of  childhood,  drawn  as  though  from  memory  in  some-    Der  wilde 
what  indistinct  outlines.     It  describes  children  play-    Alexander, 
ing  in  the  woods  till  evening  and  being  warned  by  an  old  wood- 
man to  go  home  before  nightfall. 

Johann  Hadlaub  was  a  Minnesinger  from  the  bourgeois  class. 
Probably  he  did  not  lead  a  wandering  life,  and  in  this  johann 
respect  he  occupies  a  somewhat  peculiar  position  Hadlaub. 
among  the  other  lyric  poets  of  this  period.  The  same  applies  to 
a  few  schoolmasters,  who  also  contributed  to  the  store  of  Middle 
High-German  lyric  poetry.  Hadlaub  is  a  disciple  of  Steimar, 
and  repeats  his  master's  scurrilous  comparison  of  a  beating  heart 
to  a  pig  in  a  sack.  He  narrated  a  rustic  love-adventure,  and  wrote 
autumn  feast-songs,  but  he  also  composed  conventional  Minne- 
songs, '  Tagelieder,'  and '  Leiche.'  His  realism  is  turned  to  good  ac- 
count in  his  descriptions  of  nature  and  love.  He  introduces  human 
figures  into  his  descriptions  of  scenery,  and  shows  us  for  instance 
in  the  summer  a  group  of  beautiful  ladies  walking  in  an  orchard, 
and  blushing  with  womanly  modesty  when  gazed  at  by  young  men. 
He  compares  the  troubles  of  love  with  the  troubles  of  hard-working 
men  like  charcoal-burners  and  carters.  Hadlaub  tells  us  more  of 
his  own  personal  experiences  in  his  songs  than  any  other  Minne- 
sanger.  Even  as  a  child,  we  learn,  he  had  loved  a  His 
little  girl,  who  however  would  have  nothing  to  say  to  love-poems, 
him,  but  continually  flouted  him,  to  his  great  distress.  Once  she 
bit  his  hand,  but  her  bite,  he  says,  was  so  tender,  womanly,  and 
gentle,  that  he  was  sorry  the  feeling  of  it  passed  away  so  soon. 
Another  time,  being  urged  to  give  him  a  keepsake,  she  threw  her 
needle-case  at  him,  and  he  seized  it  with  sweet  eagerness,  but  it 
was  taken  from  him  and  returned  to  her,  and  she  was  made  to  give 
it  him  again  in  a  friendly  manner.  In  later  years  his  pains  still 

P  2 


312  Poet  and  Preacher.  [ch.  vn. 

remained  unrewarded  ;  when  his  lady  perceived  him,  she  would  get 
up  and  go  away.  Once,  he  tells  us,  he  saw  her  fondling  and  kiss- 
ing a  child,  and  when  she  had  gone  he  drew  the  child  towards 
him  and  embraced  it  as  she  had  embraced  it,  and  kissed  it  in  the 
place  where  she  had  kissed  it. 

In  one  particular  song  Hadlaub  praises  Herr  Riidiger  Maness 
Hadlaub's  °^  ^(irich,  and  his  son,  because  they  would  not  let 
praise  of  the  Minnesang  perish,  and  collected  books  of  songs 


Riidiger  wj(h  great  zeal.  This  collecting-mania  probably 
affected  other  people  also  about  this  time  ;  men 
clearly  felt  that  they  were  at  the  end  of  a  brilliant  epoch  of  poetry, 
and  to  their  desire  to  preserve  its  achievements  we  owe  such  pre- 
cious monuments  as  the  Paris  Manuscript  described  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  section.  Hadlaub's  words  to  Riidiger  Maness  would 
supply  a  fitting  motto  for  that  work  : 

'  Sang  1st  ein  so  gar  edlez  guot.' 

DIDACTIC  POETRY,  SATIRES,  AND  TALES. 

Not  far  from  Ansbach,  in  the  country  of  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach  and  Wirent  von  Grafenberg,  there  lived,  in  the  begin- 
•The  ning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  a  certain  Herr  von 
Winsbeke.'  Windsbach,  who  was  called  the  '  Winsbeke.'  He  was 
an  aristocrat  like  many  another,  an  average  man  like  Hartmann 
von  Aue,  pious,  and  yet  devoted  to  all  the  interests  of  chivalry. 
He  was  the  only  nobleman  of  the  Middle  High-German  period  who 
tried  his  hand  at  didactic  poetry.  He  chose  for  this  purpose  the 
old  form  of  counsels  given  by  a  father  to  his  son  ;  the  father  is  a 
knight,  and  in  fifty-six  stanzas  the  whole  system  of  the  chivalrous 
morality  is  expounded  in  elegant  language  with  pleasing  illustra- 
tions, and  in  an  idealizing  and  generalizing  style. 

The  father  begins  with  a  warning  against  the  world  and  its 
illusions  ;  he  recommends  his  son  to  honour  the  clergy,  but  only 
for  the  selfish  reason  that  they  dispense  the  last  Sacraments  ;  what 
he  chiefly  enjoins  on  his  son  is  really  service  of  the  world,  namely, 
worship  of  women  and  deeds  of  arms.  The  Winsbeke,  like  all  the 
moralists  of  the  time,  declares  noble  birth  to  be  worthless,  if  virtue 
is  uot  added  to  it.  And  he  condemns  in  strong  terms  the  effeminate 


ch.  vii.]        Didactic  Poetry ',  Satires,  and  Tales.  213 

spirit  ('  das   Verliegen ')  which   would  prefer  a  life   of  ease  and 
luxury  to  one  of  action  and  endurance. 

This  poem  shows  us  what  ideal  aspirations  filled  the  hearts  of  the 
German  knights.  The  distinctly  moral  colouring 
which  characterizes  German  chivalry  may  have  been  character 
due  in  part  to  the  influence  of  the  Church,  but  some  of  German 
of  the  chivalrous  ideals  were  not  only  independent  of  °  va  y' 
the  Church,  but  even  opposed  to  its  teaching.  How,  for  instance, 
could  the  service  of  women  have  found  a  place  in  the  system  of 
Church-morality?  The  golden  period  of  chivalry  in  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  is  one  of  the  most  ideal  epochs  known  to 
us  in  history.  All  the  romances  reflect  to  some  extent  the 
chivalrous  ideal,  and  many  of  the  chivalrous  epic  poets  directly 
express  their  views  upon  it ;  they  also  place  general  maxims  at 
the  beginning  of  their  works,  which  contain,  as  it  were,  the 
moral  of  the  story  which  follows.  But  the  task  of  elaborating  a 
system  of  chivalrous  ethics,  and  of  writing  poems  of  merely  didactic 
import  was  left,  as  a  rule,  to  the  clergy  and  the  bourgeois- 
poets,  who  introduced  more  or  less  fragments  of  Church-mora- 
lity and  dogma,  till  at  last  these  elements  once  more  gained  the 
preponderance.  These  poets  did  not  write  in  stanzas  as  the 
Winsbeke  and  even  Walther  had  done  in  their  didactic  poems,  but 
employed  the  continuous  rhyming  couplets  of  the  chivalrous  epics, 
a  form  of  verse  which  of  all  the  Middle  High-German  metres  is  the 
nearest  approaching  to  prose. 

Loyalty,  honour,  moderation,  generosity,  steadfastness — these 
were  the  virtues  chiefly  developed  by  chivalry  and  The  virtues 
strengthened  by  the  chivalrous  poetry.  of  chivalry. 

Loyalty  had  regained  its  ancient  glory  and  dignity  through  the 
revival  of  the  heroic  poetry.  Loyalty  bound  the  vassal  to  his  feudal 
lord,  and  the  relation  of  a  lover  to  his  lady  was  in  many  respects 
a  similar  tie. 

The  idea  of  Honour  is  a  reflection  of  the  power  of  public  opin- 
ion, and  so  great  was  this  power  that  we  find  men  of  a  religious 
turn  of  mind  warning  the  knights  not  to  forget  in  their  anxiety 
about  honour  the  care  of  their  soul's  salvation.  Not'only  universal 
respect,  but  universal  love  was  considered  a  worthy  object  of  as- 


214  Poet  and  Preacher.  [ch.  VIL 

piration.     '  Thou  shalt  make  thyself  beloved '  is  one  of  the  oldest 
commandments  of  chivalrous  morality. 

One  particular  song  of  the  twelfth  century  strongly  recommends 
Moderation  (Maze).      This  virtue,  however,  had  its  questionable 
sides,  for  much  that  was  immoral  was  allowed  to  pass,  if  it  was 
done  with  moderation,  that  is  to  say,  if  public  scandal  was  avoided. 
Generosity    (Mzlde)    included    all    humane    duties,    care   of   the 
'  Der  "Wilde   sic^»  compassion  for  the  poor  and  the  unprotected. 
Mann,'  12th  A  poet  of  the  Lower  Rhine,  who  lived  in  the  twelfth 
century,     century,  and  was  called  the  '  Wild  Man,'  wrote,  in  this 
spirit   of  generosity,   against  avarice.     Another,    the    Thuringian 
"Werner      chaplain,  Werner  von  Elmendorf,  derived  the  duty  of 
von         generosity  from  the  unequal  division  of  this  world's 
Elmendorf.  gOO(js>     The   same  Werner   sketched   a   system    of 
morals  based,  not  on  the  Bible,  but  on  the  heathen  classics,  the 
Roman  philosophers  and  poets.    There  is  little  trace  in  him  of  any 
specifically  Christian  feeling.     The  spirit  of  the  chivalrous  virtue  of 
moderation  pervades  his  whole  work,  and  it  is  chivalrous  society 
that  he  has  in  his  mind  throughout.     He  argues  against  the  senti- 
mentality of  love,  the  '  stupid  Minne,'  as  he  calls  it,  not  an  enemy 
of  worldly  pleasure,  but  as  an  enemy  of  unreason  and  exaggeration. 
To  be  free  from  passion,  not  over-elated  by  prosperity  nor  re- 
duced to  despair  by  misfortune,  and  to  be  just  in  all  things — all 
this  is  included  by  Werner  in  the  virtue  of  Steadfastness  (Siaete). 
Steadfastness  is  what  we  should  call  strength  of  character,  persistence 
in  what  is  good.      This  virtue  was  elaborately  ana- 
lysed by  the  Italian  Thomasin  of  Zirclaria,  canon 
Zirclaria'B    of  Aquileja,  in  his  '  Italian  Guest,'  a  work  of  nearly 
'Welscher     15,000  lines;  it  is  the  result  of  much  learned  study, 
is   carefully   provided  with   a   preface   and   a  table 
of  contents,  and  divided  into  ten  books,  which  were  written  in  ten 
months  between   1216  and  1217.      Thomasin,  like  Werner  von 
Elmendorf,  draws  chiefly  from  the  ancient  writers,  and  from  those 
Mediaeval  writers  who   base  their  statements  on  the  authority  of 
Cicero,  Plato,  and  Aristotle.      But  he  does   not   go  beyond  the 
essential  principles  of  chivalrous  morality,  and  he  starts  with  a  dis- 
cussion not  only  on  morality  but  on  etiquette,  which  he  places 


Ch.  vii.]        Didactic  Poetry ',  Satires,  and  Tales.  315 

almost  on  an  equal  level  with  morality.     It  is  not  enough  for  him 

that  a  woman  should  do  right,  she  must  also  be  able   „ 

Thomasm's 

to  behave  herself  becomingly  and  to  converse  well ;  precepts 
if  she  has  intellect  and  knowledge  besides,  she  is  not  of 
to  show  it.  Thomasin  gives  a  number  of  precepts  etl(iuette- 
about  the  fitting  demeanour  of  knights  and  ladies,  some  of  which 
are  most  absurd.  A  lady,  he  says,  should  not  take  large  steps  in 
walking  nor  look  round  often.  A  maiden  should  only  speak 
when  she  is  questioned,  and  even  a  married  woman  should  not 
speak  much,  and  never  converse  while  she  is  eating.  A  knight 
should  not  ride  while  a  lady  is  walking,  and  should  not  gallop  up 
to  her  so  as  to  frighten  her  ;  in  speaking  he  should  keep  his  hands 
still,  and  at  table  he  should  never  eat  his  bread  before  the  first 
course  has  been  served  up,  nor  look  over  the  rim  of  his  cup  while 
drinking.  Thomasin  recommends  people  to  choose  some  noble 
character  as  their  model,  and  to  mould  themselves  after  that  pattern. 
Gawein,  Ereck,  Iwein,  Arthur,  Charlemagne,  Alexander,  Tristan, 
and  Parzival  are  held  up  as  models  to  young  men,  while  the  women 
are  advised  to  imitate  Andromache,  Enite,  Penelope,  and  Blanche- 
flur.  The  author  has  no  prejudice  against  jhe  chivalrous  epics ; 
he  only  regrets  that  they  contain  so  many  lies,  and  he  considers 
them  as  essentially  more  suited  for  those  of  riper  years. 

Thomasin  throughout  draws  his  materials  not  only  from  books, 
but  from  his  own  independent  knowledge  of  life.  He  always  speaks 
of  things,  not  in  a  vague  and  general  manner,  but  as  a  man  tho- 
roughly acquainted  with  the  world,  who  also  has  at  his  command 
effective  illustrations  and  a  style  not  indeed  elegant  but  power- 
ful. We  follow  him  with  pleasure,  and  do  not  tire  in  reading  him. 
He  and  Freidank  are  the  classics  of  Middle  High-German  didactic 
poetry ;  but  Freidank's  work  was  far  more  popular. 

Freidank  was  a  wandering  gleeman,  probably  from  Svvabia,  who 
went  with  Frederick  II  to  Palestine,  but  did  not  en-    preidank's 
joy  it  at  all  (cf.  p.  89).    He  called  his  work  '  Beschei-      Beschei- 
denheit/  which  then  meant  something  like  '  practical      denheit. 
common-sense.'    This  book  is  closely  connected  with  the  popular 
didactic  poetry.     Freidank  had  a  perfect  treasure  of  proverbs  at 
his  disposal,  and  knew  how  to  express  his  individual  views  in  such 


216  Poet  and  Preacher.  |_Ch.  vn. 

characteristic  and  pregnant  language  that  they  seem  like  sayings 
handed  down  from  old  times. 

Freidank,  like  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  was  an  enthusiastic 
Imperialist  and  an  enemy  of  the  princes,  whose  great 
perialism     Power  undermined  the  glory  of  the  Empire.     He  ex- 
and  hostility  tends  to  the  clergy  the  same  indulgence  as  the  Wins- 
to  the        beke  had  (jonej  but  he  makes  a  sharp  onslaught  on 
the  Papacy :  St.  Peter,  he  says,  received  from  God  the 
charge  of  feeding  His  sheep,  not  of  shearing  them,  yet  all  treasures 
go  to  Rome  and  never  return  thence.    The  question  of  indulgences 
also  occupies  his  attention,  and  he  recommends  with  bitter  irony 
that  the  man  who  wishes  to  commit  a  murder  in  the  coming  year 
should   seek   indulgence   for  it   already  in    this  year.     Freidank 
only  recognises  three  ranks  in   society  :    Peasants,  knights,  and 
clergy ;    only   these  three,  he  says,  were  founded  by  God  ;  the 
His  dislike    f°urtn>  tne  trading-class,  whom  he  calls '  usurers,'  were 
of  the        created  by  the  Devil.     The  opposition  to  the  rising 
middle -class,  middle-class  could  not  be  more  strongly  expressed 
than  it  is  here.     Freidank,  though  not  of  noble  birth,  looks  on 
things  entirely  from  an  aristocratic  point  of  view,  and  he  knows  the 
fashionable  world  as  well  as,  or  even  better  than,  any  of  the  Minne- 
His  respect   singers.    His  remarks  about  women  are  most  refined, 
for  women,    and  would  do  honour  to  Hartmann  von  Aue.     The 
word '  Frau,'  he  says,  comes  from  '  Freude '  (delight) ;  women  are  the 
delight  of  all  lands.     Their  power  is  enormous ;  they  have  had  an 
influence  in  everything  that  has  happened  in  the  world  ;  they  never 
let  themselves  be  quite  seen  through,  but  they  wish  to  read  the 
soul  of  man  ;  and  he  who  understands  their  excellences  must  ac- 
knowledge that  they  are  better  than  men. 

Serious  teaching  is  the  real  object  both  of  Freidank  and  of 
Thomasin  in  their  writings.     Didactic  poetry  is,  how- 
Connection   e        closely  connected  both  with  the  satire  and  the 
between  ,  ,      , 

didactic      ^K-     Didactic  poems  and  satires  are  both  off-shoots 

poetry  and    of  the  sermon  ;  the  most  scathing  satire  was  written 
satires  and   m  ^  form  Qf  penjtentjai  sermons,  and  satirical  sketches 
tales. 

of  character  were  inserted  in  purely  didactic  poems. 

The  fable  is  didactic  and  epic  at  the  same  time ;  fables  about  men 


Ch.  VIL]        Didactic  Poetry,  Satires,  and  Tales.  217 

were  added  to  those  about  animals,  and  passed  by  an  imperceptible 
transition  either  into  the  serious  tale  or  the  farce.  Satire  is  gener- 
ally the  school  for  broad  and  realistic  description,  and  the  broad 
and  the  comic  are  closely  allied.  Farce  and  comic  satire  appeal  to 
the  widest  circles ;  every  man  likes  to  laugh,  and  hence  the  laugh- 
able is  always  popular. 

Fables,  tales,  and  farces  were  written  by  the  minstrels  during  the 
tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  and  this  inferior  class  of  Fables  tajes 
poetry  probably  continued  to  exist  even  when,  at  the  and  farces, 
beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  nobler  branches  lotl1  to  14th 
of  literature  came  to  the  front.  The  ancient  tradition 
of  fable-writing  was  never  entirely  broken  off.  The  tale  was  at  all 
times  an  international  form  of  literature,  and  this  was  especially  the 
case  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries,  through  the  Latin  poetry 
which  then  held  sway  all  over  Europe.  In  the  twelfth  and  thir- 
teenth centuries  there  was  a  great  increase  from  Oriental  sources 
of  new  material  for  tales,  brought  to  Europe  by  Spanish  and  Italian 
Jews.  Indian  tales,  which  had  been  transferred  to  Persian,  and 
thence  to  Arabic,  now  passed  into  Hebrew  and  Latin,  and  from 
thence  into  the  various  European  languages. 

In  Germany  itself  we  find  that  the  districts  in  which  the  popular 
epic  flourished,  and  in  which  lyric  poetry  retained  or  regained  its 
popular  character,    namely  Austria  and  Bavaria,  were   also   the 
classic  lands  of  satire,  tale,  and  farce.       In  the  twelfth  century 
Austria  produced  the  powerful  satirist,  Heinrich  von     Heinrich. 
Molk  \   and   his   views    lived  on   in   clerical  circles    v°n  Maik. 
during  the  thirteenth   century.     In  Bavaria  at  the  same   period, 
we  find  an  old  minstrel,  a  forerunner  of  Walther  von  der  Vogel- 
weide,  writing  short  fables  confined  to  didactic  purposes,  as  Lessing 

did  some  centuries  later.     Austria  produced  Strieker, 

Strieker. 

the  most  important  name  among  German  medi- 
aeval story-tellers ;  we  have  already  become  acquainted  with  him 
as  an  epic  poet,  and  one  of  the  later  followers  of  the  classical 
chivalrous  poets.  The  tale,  as  Strieker  treats  it,  stands  on  a 
level  with  the  fable  and  the  parable,  and  belongs  to  the  class  of 
what  was  called  in  mediaeval  German  the  '  Bispell/  that  is  a  '  Spel,' 
1  Cp.  chap.  iv.  p.  76. 


218  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  vn. 

a  tale,  with  a  double  meaning  (Modern  German '  Beispielj  example). 
These  tales  narrate  a  single  occurrence  typical  of  many  similar 
ones.  Stricter  generally,  but  not  always,  adds  a  moral  to  his  tales, 
and  often  extends  this  moral  beyond  all  reasonable  limits.  He,  too, 
brings  the  didactic  purpose  as  much  as  possible  into  prominence, 
and  his  views  are  strictly  clerical  and  pious.  His  strict  views  did 
His  'Pfaffe  not,  however,  hinder  him  from  writing  'Priest  Amis/ 
Amis.*  the  story  of  a  clerical  swindler,  a  hawker  of  false  relics 
and  pretended  miracle-worker.  Strieker  also  wrote  a  series  of  satires 
bewailing  the  decay  of  chivalry,  and  giving  a  dreadful  description 
of  the  moral  corruption  of  the  aristocracy.  The  Austrian  nobles 
are  compared  to  a  glutton,  who  has  been  surfeited,  and  in  conse- 
quence of  this  becomes  temperate ;  thus,  says  Strieker,  formerly 
Austrian  lords  could  not  get  enough  of  German  song,  and  singers 
streamed  to  Austria  from  all  parts,  till  there  were  so  many  that  the 
lords  had  too  much  of  it,  and  would  give  nothing  more.  Now  no 
one  cares  about  fiddling,  singing,  and  reciting ;  only  rude  and  un- 
seemly words  are  prized,  and  good  ones  are  disdained.  Politically, 
too,  the  poet  is  opposed  to  the  nobility ;  he  takes  the  side  of  the  rebel 
peasants,  praises  the  emperor  as  the  defence  of  the  weak  and 
poor,  and  accuses  the  nobility  of  trying  to  injure  him  in  every 
way. 

The  complaints  about  the  decay  of  chivalry  are  continued  till  the 

_    .  end  of  the   thirteenth  century.      The  fifteen  satires 

Satires  * 

attributed    falsely  attributed  to  a  certain  Seifried  Helbling,  and 

to  Seifried    written  in  Austria  between  1280  and  1300,  deal  with 
3*bll"lf'     the  same  subject.     The  author  complains  that  he  who 

1280-1300.  .  .  , 

now  visits  court-feasts  may  hear  the  courtiers  around 
him  speaking  of  cattle  and  of  the  corn  and  wine-trade.  The  chivalry 
of  depredation  increased ;  the  lesser  nobles  saw  themselves  menaced 
by  the  great  clans  on  the  one  hand,  and  by  the  rising  peasant  and 

,_  .  bourgeois-class  on  the  other.   '  Farmer  Helmbrecht,'  a 

'  Meier 

Helmbrecht,'  Bavarian  village-tale  by  Werner  the  Gardener,  describes 
by  "Werner   the  aspirations  of  the  peasant-class  in  a  '  Beispiel,'  with 
Ler'  amoral  pointed  at  those  who  are  not  contented  with  the 
rank  in  which  they  are  placed.    The  young  Helmbrecht  is  an  ambi- 
tious peasant's  son,  just  such  a  youth  as  Neidhart  loved  to  scoff  at ;  he 


Ch.  vii.]         Didactic  Poetry ',  Satires^  and  Tales.  219 

wishes  above  all  things  to  shine  at  court,  and,  in  defiance  of  his 
father's  warning,  he  joins  the  train  of  a  robber-knight.  After  a 
year  he  shows  himself  at  home  in  his  new  glory,  and  the  old  and 
the  young  generation  are  thus  brought  into  characteristic  contrast. 
The  father,  who  in  his  youth  had  also  had  the  opportunity  of 
observing  chivalrous  life,  when  sent  with  cheese  and  eggs  to  the 
castle,  tells  of  knightly  jousts,  of  seemly  dances  accompanied  by 
song  and  fiddle,  of  the  reading  aloud  of  heroic  poems.  The  son, 
on  the  contrary,  only  knows  of  drinking  and  coarse  talk,  lying, 
deceiving,  and  scolding.  He  answers  his  father's  warnings  with 
rough  threats.  His  sister  follows  him  secretly;  he  wishes  to 
marry  her  to  his  comrade  Lammerschling,  and  it  is  during  the 
wedding  that  the  catastrophe  takes  place ;  the  judge  comes  with 
the  beadles  and  destroys  the  nest  of  robbers.  Young  Helm- 
brecht  has  his  eyes  put  out,  is  driven  home,  and  hanged  by  the 
peasants. 

The  increasing  rudeness  of  manners  soon  began  to  make  itself 
felt  in  the  tales  of  this  period.     A  Tyrolese  poem,  for     Tyroiese 
instance,  called   'The   bad  wife,'   introduces   us   to  poem,  'Das 
a  poor  ill-treated  husband,  who  describes  his  own  ^ble  "Weib." 
misfortunes,  compares  himself  to  the  holy  martyrs,  and  appeals 
to  public  sympathy.     The   conjugal    battle- scenes,  in  which  he 
regularly  comes  off  the  worst,  are   most   graphically  described. 
The  wife  feels  herself  so  superior  to  her  husband  that  she  threatens 
to  take  him  under  her  arm  and  carry  him  off  to  Vienna. 

Vienna  is  the  first  great  city  which  plays  a  part  as  such  in 
German  poetry.     Already  in  the  Nibelungenlied  we  find  Vienna 
occupying  a  place  of  honour.     The  Austrian  satires    satires  on 
make  us  more  intimately  acquainted  with  the  town-life     town-life, 
of  Vienna;  they  introduce  us,  for  instance,  to  a  public  bath,  or  show 
us  the  foreigner  besieged  on  his  arrival  by  the  minstrels,  who  offer 
themselves  for  any  service.     The  Viennese  burgher 
Enenkel  sketched  in  bad  verses   a  graphic   picture 
of  the  happy  times  of  the  Babenberger,  and  wrote  a  universal 
chronicle,  more  amusing  than  instructive,  in  which  anecdote  and 
farce  reign  supreme.     Humorous  tales  about  the  Viennese  became 
a  favourite  form  of  literature.      The  'Wiener  Meerfahrt'  (Sea- 


azo  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  vn. 

voyage  of  the  Viennese),  belongs  to  this  class.  A  number  of 
The  '"Wiener  carousing  Viennese  burghers  imagine  in  their  drunken- 
Meerfahrt.'  ness  that  they  are  going  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Accho, 
and  are  in  the  midst  of  a  storm,  which  they  think  is  the  fault  of 
one  of  their  companions  who  has  drunk  himself  under  the  table ; 
they  throw  the  wretched  man  out  of  the  window  so  that  he  breaks 
his  arms  and  legs.  The  next  morning  they  are  not  half  sober 
enough  to  recognise  the  mischief  they  have  done,  and  it  is  only 
after  they  have  had  a  good  sleep  that  repentance  comes  over  them. 

Another  of  these  Austrian  tales, '  Der  Weinschwelg '  (the  carouse), 
describes  in  detail  the  drinking-feats  of  a  tremendous  toper,  who 
resolves  not  to  move  from  his  seat  as  long  as  there  is  wine  in  the 
cask  before  him. 

This  literature  of  tales  is  spread  over  the  whole  of  Middle  and 
South  Germany  during  the  thirteenth  century,  and  is  quite  in- 
exhaustible. The  poets  treat  their  materials  with  more  or  less 
talent  and  skill.  The  moral  at  the  end  was  soon  dropped. 
Faithfulness  and  unfaithfulness  are  the  chief  subjects  of  these  tales, 
and  we  find  in  them  not  only  frivolity  and  coarseness,  but  also 
instances  of  generous  self-sacrifice  and  noble  feeling. 

No  genuine  didactic  poem  had  been  written  since  the  time  of 
the  Winsbeke,  Thomasin,  and  Freidank.  A  fellow-countryman 
of  the  Winsbeke,  called  Hugo  von  Trimberg,  took  up  this  form 
of  writing.  Hugo  was  a  schoolmaster  in  a  suburb  of  Bamberg, 
had  a  numerous  family,  and  was  poor  and  weighed  down  with 
cares.  Nevertheless  he  managed  to  collect  a  library  of  two 
hundred  volumes,  and  himself  wrote  twelve  works,  eight  in 
German  and  four  in  Latin.  His  Latin  writings  show  a  rare 
amount  of  reading;  of  his  German  works  the  'Renner'  is  the 

Hugo  von    onty  one  Preserved  to   us-     Hugo  wrote  this  long 

Trimberg's   poem  in  1300,  when  about  sixty  years  of  age,  and 

'Renner,'     continued  adding  to  it  till  1313.     His  definite  pur- 

1300.  ....  . 

pose  in  writing  it  was  to  produce  a  theory  of  morals. 
Where  he  cannot  treat  the  subject  exhaustively  he  refers  us  to 
St.  Bernard,  Gregory,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  Jerome,  or  John  Chry- 
sostome.  He  wishes  by  his  work  to  render  a  service  to  those 
who  do  not  understand  the  writings  of  these  lathers  of  the  Church. 


Ch.vn.]         Didactic  Poetry,  Satires,  and  Tales.  22 1 

Hugo  is  a  preacher,  preaching  in  rhymed  couplets,  but  he  does 
not  follow  any  fixed  plan  in  writing.  He  starts,  like  Dante  in  his 
'Inferno'  and  '  Purgatorio,'  from  the  basis  of  the  seven  deadly  sins 
recognised  in  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  morality;  but  he  does 
not  adhere  to  this,  and  towards  the  end  he  forsakes  all  system. 
His  point  of  view  throughout  is  that  of  Church-teaching,  but  this 
does  not  hinder  him  from  criticizing  the  clergy  and  the  Papacy. 
In  this  respect  he  resembles  Freidank,  from  whom  he  has  bor- 
rowed much,  but  he  is  far  removed  from  Freidank's  liberal  views. 
He  assigns  a  very  low  position  to  women,  he  is  hostile  to  the 
higher  classes,  and  he  attacks  the  chivalrous  epics  as  being  full 
of  lies  and  dangerous  to  piety.  He  reproaches  Konrad  von  Wiirz- 
burg  for  his  too  great  refinement  of  language; '  the  learned,'  he  says, 
1  may  praise  him,  but  the  laity  do  not  understand  him.'  Hugo's 
style,  which  is  racy  and  forcible,  and  scorns  all  finer  charms,  seems 
to  have  been  all  that  the  public  demanded  in  this  period  of  literature. 

In  tracing  the  chief  sins  through  the  various  ranks  of  society, 
and  attacking  them  all  in  turn,  Hugo  was  adopting  an  old  form 
of  writing ;  satires  on  all  classes,  or  moral  precepts  for  all  ranks  were 
a  favourite  form  of  poetry  in  the  Middle  Ages.     In  the  second 
half  of  the  thirteenth  century  a  Dominican  of  Lombardy,  called 
Jacobus  a  Cessolis,  invented  a  very  happy  form  for    Jacobus  a 
this  class  of  literature,  by  connecting  it  with  the  game      Cessolis' 
of  chess ;  he  went  through  all  the  pieces  of  the  game      ' Chess- 
in  a  succession  of  sermons,  and  thus  sketched  living 
portraits  of  a  king  and  queen,  of  councillors,  knights,  craftsmen, 
and  agriculturists,  holding  up  to  each  class   its  various   duties. 
Not  less  than  four  German  translations  in  verse   of  this  work 
were  made  between  1300  and  1375:   two  in  Allemannia,  one  in 
Central  Germany,  and  one  in  Dorpat. 

About  the  year  1300  a  Dominican  monk,  Ulrich  Boner  of  Bern, 
produced    the    oldest   German   Fable-book ;    it   was       uirioh 
written  for  a  wealthy  Bernese  citizen,  and  was  called      Boner's 
the 'Jewel.'     It  is  a  collection  of  a  hundred  fables,   <Edelstein-' 
well  told,  and  each  provided  with  a  popular  moral ;  the  frequent 
proverbial  form  given  to  these  morals  reminds  one  of  the  less  im- 
portant parts  of  Freidank's  '  Bescheidenheit.'     Ulrich,  like  Hugo 


222  Poet  and  Preacher.  [ch.  VH. 

von  Trimberg,  makes  a  conscious  effort  to  adapt  his  work  to  the 
general  level  of  intelligence,  and  blames  those  who  skilfully  com- 
bine their  words  and  preach  high  wisdom  which  they  themselves 
do  not  understand;  doubtless  Boner  was  here  thinking  of 
Mastersingers  like  Frauenlob.  Thomasin,  Freidank,  and  Hugo 
von  Trimberg  only  occasionally  wrote  in  fables ;  with  Strieker 
the  fable  hardly  differs  from  the  tale,  but  with  Boner  it  appears 
for  the  first  time  in  German  literature  as  an  independent  branch 
of  writing  reduced  to  a  fixed  form.  There  is  a  decided  poverty 
in  Boner's  moral  sayings;  if  he  turns  his  gaze  on  the  inner 
nature  of  man,  he  can  only  see  its  coarsest  features,  and  he 
never  gets  beyond  the  well-known  rudiments  of  Church  morality, 
which  the  clergy  had  preached  for  centuries.  But  his  aspirations 
are  very  modest,  and  his  narratives  as  well  as  his  teaching  please 
us  by  their  gentle  humour  and  a  certain  simple  grace.  Hugo 
Hugo  von  von  Trimberg  had  put  forth  higher  claims.  He 
Trimberg  wished  to  draw  a  picture  of  the  actual  world,  and  by 
and  Dante.  rebuke  to  lead  men  towards  the  Christian  ideal. 
Hugo  attempted  what  Dante  has  accomplished ;  and  whilst  Hugo 
thought  to  win  the  multitude  by  his  intentionally  commonplace  lan- 
guage, Dante,  with  his  depth  of  thought,  has  won  the  centuries. 

THE  MENDICANT  ORDERS. 

Dante's  'Divina  Commedia'  helped  to  lay  the  foundation  for  a 

united  Italian  nationality;   the  classical  achievements  of  Middle 

High-German    poetry   did   the  same   for   Germany. 

ment  of      Whilst  the  power  of  the  Emperor  and  of  the  Empire 

a  united      continued  to  decay,  whilst  politically  the  nation  was 

German      becoming    more    and    more    divided,    the    various 
nationality.  ' 

sections    of    the    people   were   being   drawn    closer 

together  by  common  ties.     National  feeling  took   the   place  of 
Tendency    clan-feeling,  and  language  and  law  tended  towards 
towards      unity.     About  the  year  1200  Germany  had  no  re- 
Middle  High-  C0gnise(j  literary  language,  but  we  may  say  that  the 
German  as 
the  literary    whole  of  the  written  language  of  Germany  was  gravi- 

diaiect,      tating  towards  Middle  High-German,  which  was  re- 
circ»  1200.    presented  in  its  purest  form  in  Allemannia. 


Ch.  vii.]  The  Mendicant  Orders.  223 

Whilst  in  the  sphere  of  language   South  Germany  triumphed 
over    the    North,   in   the   province   of  law,    on   the    supremacy 
contrary,    the    South   was    indebted   to    the    North,     of  Worth- 
About  the  year  1220   the  Saxon  law  was  reduced      German 
to  writing  under  the  name  of  the  '  Sachsenspiegel ' 
by  the   sheriff,  Eike   von  Repkow,  from   the   neighbourhood   of 
Magdeburg;  this  record  furnished  in  1275  the  foun-    The  'Sach- 
dation  for  the  '  Schwabenspiegel,'  a  South  German   senspiegei' 
code,  which  claimed  to  represent  the  common  law  ,  schwaben- 
of  Germany,  and  did   in   fact  obtain   over  a  wide      spiegel.' 
area. 

But  while  the  beneficial  effects  of  a  flourishing  literature  were 
thus  gradually  revealing  themselves,  the  literature  itself,  namely 
Middle  High-German  poetry,  was  becoming  extinct.     Decay  Of 
In  the  course  of  the  thirteenth  century  we  have  had  Middle  High- 
to  note  a  decline  in  all  the  branches  of  literature —      German 
in  the  popular  epic,  in  the  chivalrous  epic,  in  the  Min- 
nesang,  and  in  the  Didactic  poem;   about  1225  Walther  von  der 
Vogelweide  perceived  clearly  the  change  which  had  set  in;    by 
1300  the  revolution  was  virtually  accomplished.     It  had  become 
inevitable  that  beauty  should  yield  up  her  sceptre  to  piety,  desire 
of  knowledge,  and  love  of  amusement. 

This  painful  change  was  not  due  to  any  inner  necessity ;  it  was 
not  the  natural  senility  and  decay  of  Middle  High-German  poetry; 
that  poetry  had  not  by  any  means  exhausted  its  resources,  and 
might   have  borne  fruit  yet  in  many  directions.     Middle  High- 
German  poetry  did  not  decay  from  within,  but  was    Thia  decay 
deprived  of  light    and   air   from   without ;    the   old    due  to  the 
enemy  of  secular  poetry,  the  German  clergy,  com-  influence  of 
menced  with  redoubled  power  a  new  attack,  which 
was  this  time  successful  and  decisive  for  a  long  period. 

The  struggle  between  the  Empire  and  the  Papacy  in  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  centuries  had,  as  we  have  already  seen,  exerted  its  in- 
fluence on  German  poetry ;  the  Crusades  had  been  reflected  in  it, 
and  the  successful  expeditions  of  Frederick  the  First  had  indirectly 
been  the  means  of  calling  chivalrous  poetry  into  life  ;  the  idealism  of 
the  imperial  policy  was  reflected  in  the  idealism  of  German  poetry. 


224  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  vn. 

But  the  practical  ideal  of  life  set  up  in  Middle  High-German  poetry 
was  also  of  advantage  to  the  practical  age  which  followed  on  the 
decay  of  the  imperial  power.  The  force  which  was  formerly  ex- 
pended in  the  Crusades  or  the  Italian  campaigns  could  also  be 
exercised  on  the  coasts  of  the  Baltic.  The  empire  was  not  the 
nation,  and  the  decline  of  the  Hohenstaufen  took  place  in  a  period 
of  immense  national  aspiration.  The  German  nation  now  showed 

Expansion  a  talent  for  expanding  its  power  and  extending  its 
of  Germany,  sphere,  such  as  it  had  never  manifested  before,  even 
in  the  time  of  the  migrations  or  in  the  days  of  Charlemagne.  The 
influence  of  the  chivalrous  ideal  was  an  important  factor  in  the 
steady  colonisation  of  Brandenburg,  Silesia,  Pomerania,  and  Meck- 
lenburg, in  the  achievements  of  the  Teutonic  Order  of  Knights,  in 
the  peaceful  conquests  of  Bohemia,  in  all  the  German  enterprises 
against  Slavs,  Prussians,  and  Esths.  German  towns,  like  Augsburg 
and  Nuremberg,  became  centres  for  the  trade  of  the  world,  and  ac- 
quired much  of  the  power  and  splendour  which  before  the  Crusades 

Hise  of  the  na^  belonged  to  Constantinople,  in  the  same  capacity, 
commercial  Germany  passed  from  agriculture  to  trade ;  German 
spirit.  commerce  and  German  industry  made  marvellous 
progress  during  the  course  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  in  this 
aspect,  too,  of  the  activity  of  the  German  citizen,  we  seem  to  trace 
the  influence  of  those  virtues  which  Middle  High-German  poetry 
so  rigorously  demanded — noble  ambition,  constancy,  and  perse- 
verance, and  that  firmness  of  character  which  breaks  all  chains,  and 
clears  away  all  hindrances. 

But  Middle  High-German   poetry  itself  reaped   no   advantage 
from  the  national  prosperity  which  it  had  contributed  to  bring 

,  about.      The  whole  social  and  political  life  now  took 
Thepractioal  .  r 

tendency  of  a  new  direction.     Everyone  had  to  labour  for  himself. 

the  age      The  new  political  influence  acquired  by  the  princes 
injurious  to  ca,led  out  their  ^^  quaiities.     Knighthood  had  to 
poetry. 

struggle  for  its  existence.      Too   much   importance 

was  attached  to  practical  activity,  and  no  space  was  left  for  that 
contemplative  leisure  which  is  the  only  atmosphere  in  which  poetry 
can  flourish.  Freidank  was  right  in  his  complaint  about  usury  and 
the  princes ;  poetry  had  now  to  yield  before  material  interests.  With 


Ch.  vii.]  The  Mendicant  Orders.  225 

the  fatal  one-sidedness  which  we  have  noticed  as  characteristic  of 
the  Germans,  the  nation  plunged  heart  and  soul  into  the  new 
movement.  Even  Frederick  II  was  a  merciless  realist,  and  valued 
science  more  than  poetry.  He  welcomed  poetry  only  where  it 
served  as  a  political  weapon;  in  rewarding  Walther  von  der 
Vogelweide  he  was  rewarding  the  influential  journalist  who  had 
done  him  important  services ;  but  beyond  that  he  did  nothing  for 
poetry,  whilst  on  the  other  hand  he  made  Aristotle  accessible  to 
Western  science  and  himself  wrote  works  on  natural  history. 

But  all  this  would  only  have  deprived  German  poetry  of  its  out- 
ward conditions  of  prosperity ;  its  real  spirit,  its  noblest  ideas  were 

threatened  by   the  hostility  of  the  Church.     Middle 

TT.    ,     „  ,      ,   ,  ,  r  Heretical 

High-German  poetry  had  become,  as  we  have  often  tendencies  in 

had  occasion  to  remark,  an  independent  moral  force.  Middle  High- 
It  was  tolerant  in  its  spirit,  and  had  declared  through  German 
Wolfram  that  unbelief  could  be  expiated  by  a  mere 
( hange  of  views.  In  the  Nibelungenlied  it  had  inculcated  the  un- 
christian duty  of  revenge  ;  in  the  Minnesingers  it  assigned  a  posi- 
tion to  women  which  the  Church  could  never  yield  to  them ;  in  the 
chivalrous  and  popular  epics  it  set  up  ideals  of  life  utterly  at  vari- 
ance with  those  represented  in  the  lives  of  the  Christian  saints  ;  in 
Walther  and  Freidank's  hands  it  assumed  a  directly  hostile  attitude 
towards  the  Church  and  the  Papacy.  It  was  not  only  in  Provence 
that  heresy  went  hand  in  hand  with  the  secular  poetry.  In  Ger- 
many too  heretics  acquired  great  influence ;  they  gained  the  hearts 
of  the  people,  and  composed  hymns  and  songs  which  were  taught 
to  children.  A  favourable  political  conjunction  might  have  given 
them  as  much  power  as  they  enjoyed  in  the  South  of  France  under 
the  protection  of  the  nobility.  During  the  quarrel  between  Inno- 
cent IV  and  Frederick  II  a  German  prince  was  on  the  point  of 
openly  declaring  himself  in  their  favour,  and  it  was  only  death  that 
prevented  him  from  carrying  out  his  intention.  There  might  then 
have  been  Albigensian  wars  in  Germany  also,  and  German  poetry 
would  not  have  been  inferior  in  merit  to  the  sturdy  polemical  songs 
of  the  Troubadours.  But  the  armies,  which  were  formerly  at  the 
disposal  of  the  Pope  for  spiritual  warfare  had  become  indolent 
The  monasteries,  which  had  produced  the  clerical  poets  of  the 

Q 


226  Poet  and  Preacher.  [ch.vn. 

eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  were  sunk  in  luxury.  Even  from 
Woriaiiness  t^ie^r  doors  chivalrous  poetry  could  not  be  kept  away, 
of  the  One  day  a  Rhenish  Abbot,  who  was  preaching  to 
monasteries.  his  monks>  perceived  that  they  were  all  comfortably 
slumbering ;  he  then  raised  his  voice  and  cried :  '  Hearken, 
my  brethren  !  here  is  a  quite  new  and  wonderful  history :  there 
was  once  upon  a  time  a  king  called  Arthur  ' — at  this  they  all  started 
up  at  once,  and  received  from  the  preacher  a  fitting  reproof.  That 
was  about  the  year  1200.  In  1291,  there  was  at  the  monastery 
of  St.  Gall  no  one  who  could  write,  but  the  Abbot  tried  his  hand 
at  composing  '  Tagelieder.' 

Meanwhile  the  Church  had  long  since  brought  new  troops  into 
Rise  of  the  tne  ^e^'  wno  were  doing  their  work  with  victorious 
Mendicant  energy.  The  mendicant  orders  were  beginning  to 

Orders.      appear   already  under   Innocent  III,  and  the  popes 
Dominicans 
and  Fran-    soon  perceived  what  a  useful  instrument  they  might 

ciscans,  be  to  them.  About  1220  the  Dominicans  and  Fran- 
circa  1220.  cjscans  began  to  establish  themselves  in  Germany. 
Here,  as  elsewhere,  they  did  not  settle  in  solitary  places,  but  in 
the  towns,  and  had  a  hand  in  all  that  was  going  on ;  as  preachers 
and  confessors  they  strove  to  obtain  entire  dominion  over  men's 
souls.  The  Dominicans  were  the  more  cultivated,  the  Fran- 
ciscans the  more  popular.  The  latter  began  to  be  remarkable 
as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century  for  their  popular  preaching. 
With  the  greatest  zeal  and  ardour  they  commenced  an  onslaught 
Eeligious  on  tne  ^e  °^  chivalry,  and  condemned  everything 
revival.  connected  with  it  as  sinful.  The  preachers  specially 
sought  to  gain  an  influence  over  the  minds  of  women,  and  in  this 
they  thoroughly  succeeded.  Their  power  soon  made  itself  felt  in 
chivalrous  circles;  ladies  began  to  despise  finery,  and  to  behave 
themselves  like  nuns — '  Instead  of  going  with  us  to  the  dance,'  so 
the  knights  complained,  '  we  see  you  standing  day  and  night  in 
church.' 

The  most  powerful  of  all  the  Franciscan  popular  orators  was 

Brother      Brother  Berthold  of  Regensburg,  of  whose  sermons 

Berthoid.     we  have  numerous  records  in  German   and  Latin. 

As  an  orator  he  evinces  the  very  qualities  which  we  had  occasion 


Ch.  vii.]  The  Mendicant  Orders.  327 

to  praise  in  the  poets  of  the  Bavarian  race.  As  Walther  used  to 
excite  the  people  by  his  songs,  so  Berthold  now  carried  them  away 
by  his  discourses ;  this  greatest  preacher  inherited  nesembiance 
the  power  of  the  greatest  singer.  Berthold's  style,  between 
like  Walther's,  is  naive  and  popular;  he  too  makes  Berthold  and 
use  of  epic  and  dramatic  devices,  illustrating  his  Walth 
teaching  by  stories,  representing  his  audience  as  making  objec 
tions  to  what  he  says,  and  passionately  apostrophising  those  whom 
he  is  attacking,  whether  he  thinks  they  are  to  be  found  among  his 
audience  or  not.  Like  Walther  he  makes  it  easy  for  his  listeners  to 
follow  him,  for  his  language  is  graphic,  his  imagery  vivid,  and  he 
knows  how  to  excite  breathless  suspense  ;  he  adheres  strictly  to  the 
subject  in  hand,  and  carries  out  a  clear  system  of  subdivision  in  his 
sermons,  carefully  numbering  each  head  of  his  dis-  Berthold's 
course.  He  always  seeks  an  external  and  sensuous  manner, 
basis  on  which  to  build  up  his  spiritual  teaching.  For  instance 
he  speaks  of  ten  pence  which  we  owe  to  God,  meaning  thereby  the 
ten  commandments.  Berthold,  like  Walther,  has  a  strong  love  of 
nature ;  he  calls  heaven  and  earth  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  the 
two  books  of  religious  instruction  for  the  laity,  and  shows  them  re- 
peatedly how  these  books  should  be  read.  Berthold  too  is  an  enemy 
of  speculation,  and  warns  his  listeners  against  indulging  in  subtle 
enquiries  about  the  mysteries  of  religion ;  he  speaks  less  of  faith  than 
of  morality,  and  less  of  virtues  than  of  vices.  He  easily  glides  into 
the  satiric  vein,  but  never  into  the  comic.  He  scorns  the  course 
pursued  by  the  indulgence-mongers,  the  pence-preachers,  who 
loved  to  paint  the  sufferings  of  Christ  with  the  most  horrible  de- 
tails, shedding  many  tears  at  the  same  time,  and  thus  moving  their 
audience  to  weep.  Berthold  does  not  wish  to  touch  but  to  terrify ; 
he  wishes  to  excite  terror  and  disgust  of  sin,  and  fear  of  punishment 
in  hell.  He  was  no  great  scholar ;  he  does  not  even  quote  the 
Bible  correctly,  and  in  morality  he  does  not  found  his  statements 
on  accurate  scholastic  knowledge.  But  he  has  a  thorough  know- 
ledge of  life,  and  is  well  acquainted  with  the  people  whom  he  is 
addressing. 

Berthold  vehemently  attacks  the  heretics,  and  thus  bears  witness 
to  the  wide  influence  which  they  exercised  in  Germany.     Still  more 

Q  a 


228  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.  vn. 

vehemently  does  he  oppose  the  striving  after  wealth,  and  thereby 

bears  witness  to  the  increase  of  material  luxury  and 
His  views.     ,  ,      ..    ,  ,.  __ 

the  growth  of  the  trading  interest  in  this  period.     He 

attacks  the  minstrels,  condemns  dancing  and  tournaments,  and 
finds  fault  with  that  intermingling  of  morality  and  social  convention 
which  was  one  of  the  characteristics  of  chivalry.  He  protests 
against  the  oppression  of  the  weak  by  the  powerful,  and  he  ac- 
knowledges that  it  is  as  unlawful  to  kill  a  Jew  as  a  Christian. 
Nevertheless  he  is  wont  to  introduce  the  Jews  with  the  ornamental 
epithet  of  '  stinking,'  and  he  assures  us  that  Jews,  heathens,  and 
heretics  will  equally  go  to  hell. 

Berthold  exalts  the  authority  of  the  priest  to  an  extraordinary 
extent ;  he  says  that  if  a  priest  passed  by  where  Mary  and  all  the 
heavenly  host  were  sitting,  they  would  rise  up  before  him.  He 
places  the  Pope  far  above  the  Emperor,  and  asserts  that  the  secular 
dominion  and  authority  are  bestowed  on  the  Emperor  by  the  Pope. 
He  lived,  in  fact,  in  an  age  in  which  new  glory  was  shed  on  the 
priesthood,  and  when  the  authority  of  the  Pope  was  more  apparent 

Berthold's    ^an  tne  Power  °f tne  Emperor.     He  commenced  his 
career,       activity  as  a  popular  orator  in  the  year  1250,  and  con- 

1250-1272.  tjnued  it  tin  nis  death  on  the  isth  of  December,  1272. 
Bavaria  and  Allemannia  were  the  chief  scenes  of  his  labours,  but  he 
also  went  down  the  Danube  to  Austria  and  Hungary,  and  north- 
wards to  Bohemia,  Moravia,  and  Thuringia.  Everywhere  thousands 
of  people  flocked  to  hear  him,  and  he  had  to  preach  in  the  open 
air.  His  audience  was  usually  composed  of  citizens  and  country- 
people,  but  he  also  penetrated  into  the  castles  of  the  great,  and 
succeeded  even  there  in  softening  some  hard  hearts.  He  is  men- 
tioned by  several  of  the  chroniclers,  and  he  long  continued  to  live 
in  the  memory  of  the  people;  there  is  not  one  of  the  German 
mediaeval  poets  of  whom  we  have  so  many  accounts  as  of  this 
mendicant  monk ;  his  appearance  was  an  historical  event. 

It  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  attribute  to  Berthold  alone  the 
destruction  of  Middle  High-German  poetry;  but  he  is  anyhow 

His  great     lne  most  striking  figure  among  many  similar  men, 

influence,  who  zealously  attacked  that  beautiful  secular  life 
which  was  the  source  of  Middle  High-German  poetry,  and  which  had 


Ch.  vii.]  The  Mendicant  Orders.  229 

already  begun  to  be  threatened  from  other  quarters.     We  notice 
the  influence  of  the  sermon  in  the  'Spruch-poetry'  and  didactic 
poetry  of  this  period ;    we  see  it  converting  the  chivalrous  epic 
into  the  saintly  legend,  trying  to  confine  lyric  poetry  to  sacred 
hymns,  and  only  stopped  in  its  advances  by  the  invincible  love  of 
laughter  and  desire  of  amusement  inherent  in  the  masses  of  the 
people ;  and  Berthold  is  the  man  to  whose  charge  we  may  lay  all  this. 
But  it  was  not  piety  alone  that  spoilt  the  poetry  of  this  later 
period;    zeal  for  culture   and   thirst  for   knowledge     increasea 
had  also  something  to  do  with  its  decay.     The  chief      love  of 
representatives  of  learning  in  the  thirteenth  century     learning, 
were  the  Dominicans.     It  was  to  their  Order  that  Albert  the  Great 
belonged,  a  Swabian  noble,  who  was  Bishop  of  Regensburg  from 

1260-1262.  and  died  at  an  advanced  age  in  Cologne. 

Albertus 
He  was  a  scholar  of  wide  learning,  and  a  most  fertile     Magnus, 

writer.     He  was  the  first  really  to  introduce  the  re-     Bishop  of 

vived  Aristotle  into  Western  science,  for  the  works  of      Reeens- 

burg. 
that  great  philosopher  were  at  first  sternly  repudiated 

by  the  Church.  Albert  drew  up  an  abstract  of  the  whole  of  the 
Aristotelian  philosophy,  and  transformed  it  in  ac-  His  abstract 
cordance  with  Church  dogma.  He  set  up  Aristotle  of  Aristotle, 
as  the  great  authority  in  natural  science,  so  that  he  became  in  the 
opinion  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  forerunner  of  Christ  in  knowledge 
of  nature.  Albert  laid  the  foundation  for  Western  Konradvon 
natural  science  generally  by  his  endeavour  to  sketch  Megenberg's 

a  complete  picture  of  the  universe.     He  also  inspired   handb°oks 
,  .  j  .  ,  -  of  natural 

his   order  with  an  interest  for  natural   observation,  history  and 

and  although  he  himself  wrote  nothing  in  German,   astronomy, 

yet  his  influence  acted  at  least  indirectly  on  Konrad  14th  century- 

von  Megenberg,  who  in  the  fourteenth  century  compiled  the  first 

German  hand-books  of  natural  history  and  astronomy. 

Albert  was  also  indirectly  the  means   of  inspiring  a 

certain  class  of  German  theological  literature,  which     Aquinas, 

was  handed  on  in  extracts  and  text-books  down  to    the  fathers 

the    sixteenth  and  seventeenth   centuries;    this  was    of°®rman 

mysticism, 
the  literature  of  German  mysticism.     Albert  and  his 

still  greater  pupil,  the  Italian  Thomas  Aquinas,  a  Dominican  like 


23°  Poet  and  Preacher.  [ch.  VH. 

his  master,  furnished  a  considerable  part  of  the  thoughts  embodied 
in  the  writings  of  Meister  Eckard  and  the  other  German  mystics, 
who  were  the  first  philosophers  in  the  German  language,  and  also 
belonged  to  the  Dominican  order. 

The  central  idea  of  mysticism  is  the  poetical  conception  of 
Definition  of  tne  soul  a§  the  bride  of  God.  The  glowing  love- 
mysticism,  yearnings  of  the  Song  of  Solomon  were  interpreted 
in  this  sense,  and  mystic  theology  described  the  steps  by  which 
the  soul  could  mount  up  to  her  heavenly  bridegroom.  Albert 
the  Great  asserts  that  the  soul,  by  inward  withdrawal  from  all 
earthly  things,  may  become  united  in  spirit  with  God.  The 
Dominican,  Meister  Eckard,  called  this  process  the  apotheosis  of 
the  soul,  and  sought  to  give  it  a  psychological  and  speculative 
basis.  Meister  Eckard,  the  most  gifted  of  the  German  mystics, 
Meister  probably  came  from  Thuringia ;  from  1 304  he  filled 
Eckard.  several  high  offices  in  his  order,  and  died  in  1327 
at  Cologne.  He  and  his  associates  created  a  German  termin- 
ology for  the  abstract  ideas  of  scholasticism.  They  set  forth 
their  views  in  sermons  and  treatises,  but  these  did  not  come 
before  the  masses  of  the  people,  so  that  the  sphere  of  their  in- 
fluence was  in  general  restricted  to  the  cloister.  And  even  there 
they  could  only  reckon  on  being  understood  if  they  succeeded 
in  embodying  their  ideas  in  a  concrete  form,  and  in  illustrating 
their  thoughts  by  sensuous  imagery.  The  imagery  employed  by 
the  German  mystics  is  generally  noble  and  refined  in  character, 
seldom  coarsely  realistic.  Mysticism  has  a  bond  of  connection 
with  poetry  through  the  figurative  style  which  it  adopted  for 
religious  instruction ;  and  it  not  only  influenced  religious  poetry, 
but  also  produced  a  number  of  prose-writings,  through  which  the 
purest  poetry  shines.  Eckard  is  the  real  philosopher  among  the 
mystics;  Tauler  and  Suso,  his  younger  contemporaries  and  fol- 
lowers, never  got  beyond  his  sublime  thoughts.  No  other  of  the 
mystics  soared  so  high,  or  shared  that  bold  attitude  of  mind  which 
made  Eckard  go  the  length  of  saying :  '  If  it  were  possible  that 
Tauler  and  God  could  turn  from  truth,  I  would  cleave  to  the 
Suso.  truth  and  forsake  God.'  Tauler  is  more  practical, 
more  bent  on  edifying  than  Eckard,  and  seeks  to  inspire  his 


Ch.  VIL]  The  Mendicant  Orders.  231 

hearers  with  an  active  love  of  humanity.  Heinrich  Suso  is  less 
a  preacher  than  a  man  of  letters,  less  of  a  theologian  than  of 
a  lyric  poet.  Eckard,  it  is  true,  sometimes  reminds  us,  by  his 
skilful  dialectic,  of  certain  representatives  of  the  Minnesang,  but 
Suso  is  simply  a  spiritual  Minnesinger  writing  in  prose.  He 
transfers  the  exact  language  of  earthly  love  to  heavenly  devotion ; 
he  introduces  descriptions  of  nature,  and  gives  them  a  spiritual 
interpretation ;  he  connects  spring  and  love,  winter  and  mourning ; 
he  compares  women  to  flowers,  and  worldly-disposed  people  to 
roving  falcons,  and  even  goes  so  far  as  to  introduce  Lady  Venus, 
and  that  'master  of  loves,'  Ovid,  into  his  writings.  Suso  is  a 
sentimental  and  somewhat  effeminate  writer,  and  he  assumes  that 
his  book  will  be  read  in  the  first  place  by  women.  His  life, 
which  was  written  by  a  woman,  is  not  a  biography  in  our  sense  of 
the  word,  but  contains  memorable  events  in  his  spiritual  life,  which 
was  of  a  very  emotional  character.  The  book  forms  a  religious 
pendant  to  Ulrich  von  Lichtenstein's  secular  love-memoirs. 

Pious  women  played  a  great  part  in  the  whole  movement  of 
mysticism.  Mathilde  von  Magdeburg,  who  died  about 
the  year  1277,  describes  in  her  fragmentary  reve-  mystics, 
lations  the  marriage  of  the  soul  with  its  heavenly  Mathildevon 
bridegroom;  her  language  is  exalted  in  tone  and  ag  eburg- 
sometimes  passes  into  rhyme.  She  feels  herself  carried  up  to 
heaven,  and  imagines  herself  gazing  into  the  future ;  she  laments 
the  corruption  of  the  Church,  and  praises  the  Dominican  order. 
Mathilde  found  a  number  of  imitators,  both  in  her  lifetime  and 
after  her  death.  In  the  fourteenth  century  visions  became  the 
fashion,  and  religious  ecstacy  was  looked  upon  as  the  state  of 
union  with  God.  If  one  nun  had  tasted  the  blessed  rapture,  none 
of  her  sisters  would  wish  to  be  thought  inferior  to  her.  One 
monastery  rivalled  another  in  this  respect,  and  a  record  was  kept 
of  the  visions  seen  in  each ;  there  was  an  interchange  of  spiritual 
experiences,  and  an  active  correspondence  was  kept  up  with 
the  most  prominent  mystics,  in  addition  to  personal  intercourse 
with  them. 

In  Allemannia  this  movement  proceeded  side  by  side  with  the 
last   efforts   of  the   Minnesang.     It  was   in   the  writings  of  the 


233  Poet  and  Preacher.  [Ch.vn. 

mystics  and  of  their  pious  female  worshippers  that  the  chivalrous 
spirit  found  its  last  refuge.  There,  and  there  only,  did  refinement 
and  a  sense  of  form  still  survive.  In  this  movement  women 
played  as  conspicuous  a  part  as  they  had  done  in  the  golden  days 
of  chivalry.  Women  with  higher  intellectual  capacities,  who  had 
formerly  felt  themselves  happy  in  intercourse  with  the  poets,  now 
retired  to  the  seclusion  of  a  convent  or  almshouse  and  joined  in 
company  with  sentimental  priests  in  seeking  after  the  Eternal. 
Interpretations  of  the  Song  of  Solomon  heralded  the  commence- 
ment of  the  epoch  of  chivalrous  love-poetry,  and  a 
Mysticism  ' ' 

closes  the     spiritual   love-philosophy  signalizes   the   end   of  the 

period       period.     And  just  as  we  noticed  in  the  twelfth  cen- 

0  *  e        tury,  that  when  the  clergy  began  to   give  a  poetic 

tinge  to  their  piety,   their  writings  lost  their  former 

seriousness  and  devoutness,  so  too,  in  this  later  period,  we  shall 

see  that  mysticism  formed  a  stage  of  transition  to  an  epoch  which 

was  to  make  the  most  vehement  attacks  on  the  Roman  clergy 

and  to  limit  their  influence  for  ever. 

Mystical  theology  often  borders  on  pantheism,  and  it  easily  came 
under  the  suspicion  of  heresy.  Meister  Eckard  had  to  answer  for 
Rising  oppo-  ^s  opinions  before  the  Inquisition  ;  he  had  to  make 

sition  to  the  a  recantation,  and  some  of  his  doctrines  were  con- 
Papal  power,  demned.  The  mendicant  monks,  once  the  most 
faithful  servants  of  the  Pope,  had  now  attained  to  such  inde- 
pendent power  that  they  could  even  turn  against  the  Papacy. 

In  the  reign  of  Ludwig  the  Bavarian  (1314—1347)  we  actually 
find  the  Franciscans  ranged  on  the  Emperor's  side  against  the 
Papacy.  While  Brother  Berthold  of  Regensburg  had  made  the 
Emperor's  authority  dependent  on  the  Pope,  we  find  his  brothers 
of  the  same  order  at  Munich  attacking  Papal  omnipotence  and  in- 
fallibility, attributing  to  the  Emperor  judicial  power  over  a  heretical 
Pope,  and  beginning  to  discuss  the  boundaries  of  Church  and  State. 
In  literature  also  there  are  increased  signs  of  an  important  change 

Attacks  on    towards  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century.     The 

the  clergy,  attacks  on  the  power  of  the  clergy  became  more  bitter, 
the  condemnation  of  the  unholy  lives  and  mental  dishonesty  of  the 
priests  more  vehement.  A  more  decisive  resistance  was  offered  to 


Ch.vu.]  The  Mendicant  Orders.  233 

the  Papal  prohibitions  of  the  Bible,  which  had  been  repeatedly 
issued  since  1229.  There  has  been  preserved  to  us  a  German 
version  of  the  Sunday  Gospels  and  Epistles,  with  a  preface  in 
which  a  layman  defends  himself  against  the  '  highly  learned  priests,' 
and  boasts  of  having  translated  the  Gospels  into  German  ;  he  also 
says  that  he  is  preparing  another  work  in  defiance  of  the  priests. 

From  1308  to  1382  there  lived  in  Strassburga  layman,  Rulmann 
Merswin  by  name;  he  was  a  merchant  who  had  Rulmann 
given  up  his  business,  and  in  middle  life  devoted  Merswin. 
himself  to  literature,  though  his  works  were  not  at  first  intended 
for  the  public.  He  had  been  a  penitent  of  Tauler's,  but  afterwards 
left  his  confessor  and  sought  his  salvation  independently.  Rulmann 
calls  the  clergy  Pharisees  and  reproaches  them  with  teaching  things 
that  they  could  not  prove  from  Holy  Writ.  On  the  other  hand  he 
exalts  the  God-favoured  laity,  the  true  friends  of  God,  who  had 
attained  to  union  with  Him,  and  recommends  them  as  pastors  and 
spiritual  fathers  instead  of  the  priests.  The  direct  way  to  God,  as 
taught  by  the  Mystics,  became  in  Rulmann's  hands  a  weapon  against 
sacerdotal  authority.  He  went  so  far  as  to  invent  the  character  of 
a  lay  mystic,  whom  he  called  the  '  Friend  of  God  in  the  Ober- 
land,'  and  he  made  those  around  him  believe  in  the  reality  of  this 
man.  Rulmann's  lay  mystic  receives  many  revelations  from  God, 
and  exercises  a  magic  power  over  men's  hearts ;  he  is  the  leader 
of  a  secret  community  and  edifies  his  faithful  followers  by  many 
writings ;  he  subjects  a  learned  priest  to  his  spiritual  dominion,  and 
even  exercises  a  personal  influence  over  the  Pope.  Later  on  it 
was  thought  that  Tauler  was  referred  to  in  the  priest  who  had  sub- 
mitted himself  to  the  friend  of  God  instead  of  to  God  Himself.  It 
was  also  told  of  Meister  Eckard  that  he  had  bowed  in  reverence 
before  a  visionary  woman,  had  envied  her  for  her  holiness  and  had 
thankfully  received  her  spiritual  teaching.  The  religious  inde- 
pendence of  the  laity  could  not  have  been  carried  further  than  this. 

Rulmann's  prose  is  diffuse  and  uninteresting,  and  full  of  weari- 
some  repetitions    owing    to   his    lack  of  invention.    jjj8 .  Buch 
But  one  of  his  works,  the  '  Book  of  the  Nine  Rocks,'      von  den 
is  remarkable  as  reminding  us  in  its  plan  of  Dante's  neun  Feisen.' 
immortal  poem.     It  begins  with  a  pessimistic  picture  of  the  world, 


334  P°gt  an<l  Preacher. 

a  satire  on  all  classes,  which  corresponds  to  the  Inferno ;  then  the 
soul  climbs  up  nine  terraces  one  above  the  other,  as  Dante  climbed 
up  the  mountain  of  Purgatory,  and  at  the  end  we  have  a  glimpse 
into  the  Holy  of  Holies,  into  the  origin  of  things,  where  the  soul 
is  wedded  to  its  Creator.  Rulmann  calls  back  to  our  mind  the 
tolerant  times  of  Walther  and  Wolfram  when  he  denies  that  all 
Jews  and  Heathens  are  damned,  and  asserts  that  God  loves  some 
Jews  and  Heathens  much  better  than  many  Christians.  At  the 
same  time  the  poetic  terms  of  mysticism  are  familiar  to  him,  and 
he  thus  unites  the  dying  strains  of  Middle  High-German  love- 
poetry  with  the  first  tones  preluding  the  Reformation. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  CLOSE  OF  THE   MIDDLE  AGES  (1348-1517). 

IN  the  year  1348,  the  fearful  plague  known  as  the  Black  Death 
broke  over  Europe,  and  for  the  space  of  two  years  The  Black 
continued  to  ravage  most  of  the  German  provinces.  Death,  1348. 
Men  were  then  seized  with  deep  remorse  for  their  sins,  and  began 
to  do  penance  on  their  own  account.  Bands  of  excited  people 
wandered  from  place  to  place,  and  read  out  what  they  declared 
to  be  a  letter  fallen  from  heaven,  in  which  Jesus  Christ  Himself 
addressed  the  faithful,  and  did  not  spare  the  clergy.  These 
people  also  scourged  themselves  in  public,  and  one  layman  con- 
fessed another.  Fear  of  Divine  judgment  made  men  more  pious, 
but  it  did  not  reconcile  them  to  the  Church ;  the  religious  inde- 
pendence of  the  laity  is  as  clearly  expressed  in  the  processions 
of  the  Flagellants  as  in  the  writings  of  Rulmann  Merswin  of 
Strassburg,  which  belong  to  about  the  same  period. 

In  the  same  year  1348,  the  first  German  University  was  founded 
at  Prague,  and  the  basis  was  thus  laid  for  the  exist- 
ence of  the  learned  classes  in  Germany.   The  Church,    Qf  the  first 
thinking  to  strengthen  its  power  by  new  bulwarks,      German 
gave  its  blessing  to  the    undertaking.     But   it  was   University 
possible  also  for  the  Universities  to  become  enemies    a  134^°' 
to  the  Church.     The  scholars  trained  by  the  Uni- 
versities entered  the  service  of  the  ruling  princes,  and  it  was  by 
co-operation  of  scholars  and  princes  that  the  Reformation  was 
accomplished. 

The  processions  of  the  Flagellants  and  the  foundation  of  the 
first  German  University  stand  as  significant  events  at  the  entrance 


236  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.vni. 

of  a  period  of  300  years,  which  extends  to  the  peace  of  Westphalia 
Character-  anc*  inches  all  the  religious  and  political  move- 
istics  of  the  ments  preparatory  to  and  consequent  on  the  Refor- 
period  from  mation.  Tolerance  was  not  a  characteristic  of  this 
1348  to  1648.  ep0ch .  jt  ha(j  jts  persecutions  of  the  Jews,  its  Hussite 
wars  and  its  Thirty  Years'  War ;  it  was  only  the  powerless  and 
persecuted  who  taught  that  belief  should  not  be  forced  upon  any 
one.  The  tendencies  which  in  the  course  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury had  undermined  chivalrous  life  and  destroyed  Middle  High- 
German  poetry,  were  now  carried  still  further.  Men  had  a  super- 
stitious respect  for  knowledge,  although  in  the  sixteenth  century 
popular  wit  gave  birth  to  the  saying  which  soon  became  current : 
'  Die  Gelehrten,  die  Verkehrten '  (scholars  are  all  crazy).  German 
industry  and  German  trade  experienced  their  greatest  prosperity 
and  their  deepest  decadence  during  this  period.  Natural  science 
and  industry  together  produced  those  discoveries  which  changed 
the  face  of  the  world;  the  arts  of  engraving,  wood-cutting  and 
printing  were  direcdy  advantageous  to  intellectual  life  and  to 
literature.  But  the  jealousy  which  already  in  the  thirteenth 
century  reigned  between  the  nobility  and  the  bourgeois-classes, 
now  produced  civil  wars,  and  the  egoism  of  the  various  parties 
weakened  the  power  of  the  whole  nation.  The  position  of 
Germany  with  regard  to  foreign  countries  continued  to  decline 
in  importance  from  the  fifteenth  century  onwards ;  the  expansive 
power  of  the  German  people  was  exhausted  for  the  time  being, 
and  the  nation  most  powerful  in  arms  of  all  Europe  learnt  to 
tremble  before  Turks,  French  and  Swedes,  as  it  had  once 
trembled  before  Saracens,  Normans  and  Magyars.  In  this  vast 
religious,  scientific,  warlike  and  material  struggle,  there  was  little 
room  left  for  poetry  or  for  aesthetic  interests  in  general.  Only 
the  industrial  arts  could  attain  to  any  importance,  and  the  achieve- 
ments in  this  direction  far  surpassed  the  results  attained  in  paint- 
ing, sculpture  and  architecture.  This  whole  period  down  to  the 
Decay  of  seventeenth  century  did  not  produce  a  single  poetical 
poetry.  work  which  could  even  satisfy  the  most  elementary 
claims  with  regard  to  purity  of  form.  Versification  passed  for 
the  most  part  into  a  mechanical  counting  of  syllables  or  into 


Ch.  viii.]  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  237 

total  irregularity,  and  even  the  language  itself  was  barbarously 
mutilated.  This  period  amassed  vast  quantities  of  poetic  material, 
nor  were  new  forms  wanting  in  which  the  peculiar  spirit  of  the 
age  found  expression;  but  the  good  material  was  treated  in  a 
bungling  and  careless  fashion.  Though  dramatic  spectacles  found 
the  greatest  favour  with  the  people,  yet  no  plays  of  any  permanent 
artistic  value  were  produced.  Humorous  realism  was  most  in 
sympathy  with  the  taste  of  the  times,  yet  these  Aristophanic  cen- 
turies, as  they  may  well  be  called,  brought  forth  no  Aristophanes. 
The  cultivated  manners  of  the  age  of  the  Hohenstaufen  had  en- 
tirely passed  away;  formerly  women  had  been  worshipped  as 
blessed  saints,  now  they  were  burnt  as  witches,  and  all  possible 
evil  was  said  of  them.  In  the  preceding  period  great  importance 
was  attached  to  refined  manners,  and  almost  too  great  Coarseness 
sacrifices  were  made  to  the  conventions  of  society,  of  the  age. 
Now  shamelessness  reigned  supreme;  St.  Grobianus  (Grob= coarse) 
became  the  idol  of  the  age,  and  the  obscene  Eulenspiegel  its 
darling. 

The  study  of  the  ancients  was  the  only  thing  that  could  restore 
to  the  Germans  the  vanished  sense  of  beauty.     But  no  real  im- 
provement resulted  from  this  quarter  until  the  classical  tendency 
in  other  modern  literatures  exerted   its   influence   on  Germany, 
until  the  examples  of  France,  Italy,  Spain,  England,   influence  of 
and  Holland  succeeded  in  awakening  a  Renaissance  the  Benais- 
in  Germany  also.     Poetry  then  passed  into  the  hands    8a^°g  J^*7 
of  the   scholars,  who   once  more  introduced  purity     Germany. 
and  regularity  into  language  and  metre. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  period  the  lower  classes  became  the 
audience  for  whom  the  poets  wrote.     In  most  of  the  towns  which 
were  centres  of  intellectual  life  the  plebeians  were  in  power,  and 
thus  it  was  they  who  naturally  gave  the  tone  to  poetry.     The 
popular   song,  the  tale,  the   comic  anecdote,  but  above   all   the 
drama,  which  exercised  such  an  influence  on  the  masses,  now 
attained  greater  prominence.     The  nobility  still  re-       p0etry 
mained  faithful  to  the  romance;    and  when  in  the     becomes 
seventeenth  century  the  aristocracy  again  began  to      popular, 
take  an  interest  in  poetry,  the  drama  reaped  no  lasting  benefit 


238  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [ch.  vin. 

therefrom,  but  still  continued  to  follow  the  taste  of  the  people. 
The  character  of  the  masses,  however,  had  changed;  towards 
the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  we  find  them  increasingly  frivolous, 
but  after  the  Reformation  increasingly  serious.  In  earlier  times 
they  had  laughed  at  the  devil,  in  later  times  they  regarded  him 
with  terror.  It  is  the  earlier  and  larger  half  of  this  epoch,  the 
time  from  1348  to  1517,  which  will  occupy  us  in  the  present 
chapter. 

RISE  OF  THE  DRAMA. 

The  German  drama  owes  its  origin  to  the  Middle  High-German 

period,  and  here  again  legend  leads  us  to  the  foot  of  the  Wartbuig 

and   draws  a  vivid  picture  of  the  great  power  which   dramatic 

spectacles   then  exercised  over   the  minds   of  men. 

•wise  and     ^e  Possess  an  °^  German  drama  founded  on  the 

Foolish      parable  of  the  Wise  and  Foolish  Virgins.   The  foolish 

Virgins,  circa  ones  are  children  of  the  world,  who  play  and  amuse 

1320 

themselves,  thinking  they  will  still  be  in  time  for  the 
feast;  but  the  Lord  refuses  them  admission,  and  even  Mary's 
intercession  cannot  move  Him;  they  are  carried  off  by  devils, 
and  break  into  heartrending  lamentations. 

The  story  is  that  this  piece  was  represented  at  Eisenach  in 
1322  before  the  Landgrave,  Frederick  of  Thuringia;  when  he 
saw  that  even  Mary's  efforts  could  not  help  the  guilty,  the  Land- 
grave was  filled  with  despair  and  anger,  and  said :  '  What  avails 
then  the  Christian  faith  ?  Will  God  not  have  mercy  on  us  for 
the  sake  of  Mary  and  all  the  saints?'  And  he  went  to  the 
Wartburg  and  was  unconscious  for  five  days  or  more,  and  then 
was  seized  by  a  stroke,  in  consequence  of  which  he  kept  his  bed 
for  three  years  and  finally  died,  at  the  age  of  fifty-five. 

Dramatic  spectacles  produced  a  deeper  impression  on  the  mind 
than  could  ever  be  attained  by  the  sermon.  The  clergy  knew 
this  well,  and  therefore  they  cultivated  the  religious  drama,  till 
at  last  it  became  independent  of  their  control  and  served  more 
for  amusement  than  for  edification.  So  far  as  we  know,  the 
parables  of  the  New  Testament  were  seldom  used  as  dramatic 
subjects  before  the  Reformation.  In  the  Old  Testament,  the 


Ch.  viii.]  Rise  of  the  Drama.  239 

stories  of  Joseph  in  Egypt,  of  the  Judgment  of  Solomon,  and  of 
Susanna,  were  favourite  subjects  for  plays.  Sacred  legends  fur- 
nished the  stories  of  Mary's  Ascension,  of  the  Finding  of  the 
Cross,  of  St.  Dorothy,  St.  Katharine,  St.  George  and  Theophilus ; 
Church  history  supplied  the  character  of  Pope  Joan.  But  the 

starting-point  of  all  these  plays,  the   origin  of  the 

„.    .    .  ,  11-     Origin  of  the 

Christian    drama,   is   to   be   traced  to   the  dramatic  Drama  t0  be 

embellishment  of  the  Church-festivals.  Ancient  and  found  in  the 
simple  ceremonies  were  developed  into  complete  Church- 
dramatic  representations.  A  manger  behind  the  altar, 
a  boy  as  an  angel  announcing  the  birth  of  Christ,  other  boys  as 
shepherds  coming  to  adore  at  the  manger, — these  were  the  germs 
of  the  Christmas-play,  which  in  later  elaborations  extended  from 
the  Messianic  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the  massacre  of 
the  Innocents,  and  ended  with  the  heart-rending  cries  of  the  mothers 
of  Bethlehem.  The  Passion-plays  arose  from  the  custom  of  read- 
ing aloud,  during  Passion-week,  the  Gospel-accounts  of  the  suffer- 
ings of  Christ,  and  assigning  to  various  persons  the  sayings  and 
dialogues  occurring  in  the  narrative;  these  Passion-plays  usually 
ended  with  the  entombment.  The  Church-festival  of  Easter  gave 
rise  to  the  Resurrection-plays.  Tableaux  vivants  of  the  Creation, 
the  Fall,  and  the  Redemption,  were  an  adjunct  of  the  procession 
of  Corpus  Christi  Day,  and  thus  arose  the  Corpus  Christi  plays. 

The  Passion-plays  and  Easter-plays  might  be  united  into  one, 
and  would  then  extend,  perhaps,  from  the  Baptism  of  Christ  in 
Jordan  to  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy  Spirit.     In  the 
fifteenth  century  these  plays  often  attained  a  length  and  Develop- 
of  8000  rhymed  lines ;  they  went  on  for  three  or  four  ment  of  the 
days,  and  about  300  people  were  employed  to  take     religious 
part  in  them.     The  oldest  religious  plays  had  been 
in  Latin,  but  now  only  a  few  traditional  Latin  hymns  reminded 
people  of  their  original  form.     At  first  the  Church  was  the  scene 
of  these  representations,  but  later  on  the  stage  was  set  up  in  the 
open  air.     While  the  earlier  plays  had  many  points  of  resemblance 
with   the   opera,  in   the  later  ones  predominance  was   given   to 
spoken  dialogue,  written  in  prose-like   couplets.     The   dramatic 
art  was   as   imperfect  as  the  scenic   appliances.     The   stage,  or 


240  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.          [ch.vin. 

rather  the  play-ground  round  which  the  spectators  gathered,  was 
generally  supposed  to  represent  a  plan  of  the  city,  or  a  map  of 
the  country ;  if  the  player  passed  from  one  corner  to  another,  this 
might  mean  that  he  went  into  another  house  or  journeyed  into 
a  foreign  country.  The  actors  had  no  entrances  and  exits;  each 
had  his  fixed  station,  from  which  he  advanced  when  taking  part 
in  the  action,  and  to  which  he  afterwards  retired.  Later  on,  scenic 
decoration  was  not  totally  wanting :  a  tree,  a  pillar,  or  a  table  was 
introduced,  a  garden  was  hedged  in  or  a  temple  set  up ;  heaven 
was  represented  by  a  scaffolding  to  which  a  ladder  gave  access, 
and  in  a  distant  corner  the  very  jaws  of  hell  were  seen  to  yawn. 
But  in  the  fifteenth  century  hell  had  still  to  be  represented  by 
a  barrel ;  a  barrel,  too,  was  the  pinnacle  of  the  temple,  and  another 
barrel  stood  for  the  high  mountain  where  Christ  was  tempted  by 
Satan.  Many  years  might  elapse  in  a  few  moments  without  the 
ending  of  the  act.  Everything  was  represented  in  detail  on  the 
stage  and  there  was  no  idea  of  concentration.  The  trouble  of 
any  dramatic  exposition  was  most  simply  avoided  by  making  each 
actor  announce  who  he  was.  The  dramatist  treated  his  subject 
like  an  epic  writer,  and  his  work  was  merely  a  narrative  in 
action. 

Similar  features  may  be  traced  in  all  these  plays  throughout  the 
whole  of  Germany;  like  the  Nibelungenlied,  the  story  of  the 
Wartburg-contest  and  other  popular  poems,  they  arrived  at  their 
present  form  through  the  elaboration  of  simple  incidents  and  the 
collection  of  the  same  by  the  hands  of  various  poets.  None  of 
these  writers  sought  his  own  fame  by  his  work,  and  few  of  their 
names  are  known  to  us.  Not  one  of  them  felt  any  scruple  in 
plundering  his  predecessors,  or  making  literal  transcriptions  of  epic 
poems.  Truth  in  costume  and  accessories  was  as  little  an  object 
with  the  mediaeval  dramatists  as  it  was  with  the  writer  of  the  '  Hel- 
jand'  or  the  artists  of  the  fifteenth  century  ;  and  indeed,  the  latter 
simply  transferred  to  their  canvas  the  impressions  which  they  re- 
ceived from  these  religious  spectacles.  As  the  poets  of  the  ninth 
century  had  blended  feudal  ideas  with  the  life  of  Christ,  so  now  a 
bourgeois  conception  prevailed,  and  Jerusalem  became  a  mediaeval 
German  town  in  the  imagination  of  German  poets  and  painters. 


Ch.  viii.]  Rise  of  the  Drama.  241 

The  noblest  poetic  features  which  the  Drama   added   to  the 

Biblical  narrative  date  from  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 

Religious 

centuries ;  that  epoch,  in  which  so  much  poetical  drama  in  the 
sentiment  prevailed,  made  its  influence  felt  also  in  12tk and  13th 
this  sphere  of  literature.  Mary  Magdalene  is  the  centuries- 
favourite  figure  of  the  dramatists  of  that  period  ;  she  is  represented 
as  a  child  of  the  world,  who  is  converted,  and  even  in  her  sinful  life 
her  character  is  not  without  charm.  Again,  many  touching  traits 
were  invented  in  connection  with  Christ's  mother.  For  instance, 
in  some  of  the  Passion-plays,  Judas  has  hardly  put  away  the  thirty 
pieces  of  silver  when  he  is  met  by  Mary,  who  calls  him  her  dearest 
friend,  and  unsuspectingly  confides  her  Son  to  his  care.  On  the 
way  to  Calvary  she  hears  the  blows  of  the  hammer  with  which 
Christ  is  being  nailed  to  the  cross.  In  her  unceasing  lamentations 
the  pathetic  and  the  horrible  are  closely  mingled. 

As  we  advance  in  the  fifteenth  century  the  delight  in  comic 

characters  becomes  greater,  and  the  audacity  which 

,  ,  .          ,          ,  .  ...  ,  Coarse  fun 

would  introduce  them  even  into  religious  plays  more  characteristic 

marked.     The  Jews  are  the  victims  not  only  of  hatred,        of  the 
but  also  of  ridicule.     Thus  Judas  is  made  to  weigh      religious 
the  blood-money  coin  by  coin.     The  watch  at  the  ,^  *ys  ° 

•  »  15th  century. 

grave  are  depicted  as  cowardly  braggarts.  The  dealer 
from  whom  the  three  Marys  buy  spices  had  long  been  represented 
as  a  Jewish  quack-doctor ;  in  the  later  plays  he  receives  the  addi- 
tion of  a  branded  thief  as  his  servant,  and  a  quarrelsome  woman 
as  his  wife,  with  whom  he  is  constantly  having  fights.  The  race 
between  Peter  and  John  to  the  grave  is  also  treated  in  a  humorous 
spirit,  and  the  later  religious  plays  generally  are  full  of  coarse  fun 
of  this  sort. 

But  it  was  the  devil  who  was  the  privileged  comic  character  and 
intriguant  par  excellence  in  the  popular  religious  drama.  His  part 
was  continually  enlarged ;  the  hosts  of  hell  grew  more  numerous, 
the  names  of  the  devils  more  and  more  eccentric.  Chosen  repre- 
sentatives of  the  various  classes  are  brought  into  the  presence  of 
Lucifer  ;  there  is  the  usurer,  the  monk,  the  witch,  and  the  robber. 
Lucifer  imposes  a  punishment  on  cheating  craftsmen,  but  a  priest 
who  has  been  dragged  into  hell  is  able  to  drive  even  the  devil  into 

R 


242  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vin. 

a  corner  by  the  vapour  of  incense  and  by  his  curses,  and  then 
easily  sets  himself  free.  We  see  that  the  serious  spirit  of  the  early 
Eisenach  play  had  completely  vanished. 

The  legend  of  Theophilus  and  that  of  Pope  Joan  were  favourite 
subjects  of  the  religious  drama.  Theophilus  is  a  priest  who  has 
handed  himself  over  into  the  power  of  the  devil  by  a  bond,  in  which 
he  renounces  God  and  the  Virgin  Mary ;  afterwards,  however,  he  is 
moved  by  a  sermon,  and  repents.  The  Virgin  herself  espouses 
his  cause,  and  succeeds  in  moving  her  Son  to  mercy,  and  in  com- 
pelling the  devil  to  give  up  the  bond.  Pope  Joan  is  an  English 
""girl  who  goes  to  Paris  disguised  in  man's  clothes,  accompanied  by 
a  priest,  her  lover.  She  is  made  a  doctor  there  and  a  Cardinal  in 
Rome,  and  finally  rises  to  the  Papacy.  At  last  she  is  unmasked 
with  shame,  and  is  received  by  the  devils  in  hell,  whence,  however, 
she  is  freed  by  the  intercession  of  Mary  and  St.  Nicholas.  This 
subject  was  treated  by  Theodorich  Schernberg  in  his  play,  '  Frau 
Jutta'  (1480). 

At  this  time  the  devil  also  played  an  important  part  in  German 
farce.  Old  German  comedy  never  attained  to  anything  higher 
than  the  farce.  Bodily  deformities,  indecencies  of  all  kinds,  beat- 
ings, scoldings  and  curses,  comic  surnames,  speeches  in  foreign 
languages,  verbal  misunderstandings,  literal  interpretations  of  figur- 
ative expressions,  bombastic  speeches — these  were  the  means  by 
which  the  wit  of  this  age  satisfied  the  taste  of  a  laughter-loving 
audience. 

The  German  religious  drama  is  divided  into  very  much  the  same 
classes  as  the  French ;  in  this  branch  of  literature  also  France  set 
the  fashion,  both  in  the  general  spirit  and  in  the  details  of  execu- 
tion. Germany  as  well  as  France  produced  Mysteries,  Moralities, 
Mysteries  or  Farces,  and  Sotties.  The  Mysteries  or  Miracle-plays 

Miracle  were  derived  from  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  or 
plays.  from  sacre(j  legend  or  history — for  instance,  from 
the  Trojan  cycle  of  legends. 

The  Moralities  included  New  Testament  parables,  disputations, 

(for  instance  between  Synagogue  and  Church,  or  Life 
Moralities.    V  b  . 

and  Death),  and  other  pieces  with  allegorical  charac- 
ters or  personified  abstractions.     The  dance  of  Death  which  Hoi- 


Ch.  viii.]  Rise  of  the  Drama.  243 

bein  has  immortalised  is  the  picture  of  a  Morality-play,  in  which 
Death  was  made  to  fetch  away  the  various  ranks  or  periods  of  life 
one  after  another  to  the  dance,  and  to  hold  a  short  dialogue  with 
each. 

The  Farces,  the  real  burlesques,  were  frequently  written  in  the    , 
form  of  a  legal  trial ;  they  mostly  deal  with  questions 
of  love  and  marriage,  and  the  scene  is  generally  laid  in 
the  present.     But  they  also  draw  their  materials  from  the  Arthurian 
legends,  from  the  poetry  of  the  gleemen,  and  from  that  of  Neid- 
hart,  or  from  classical,  Italian  and  German  tales.      We  meet  with 
the  heroes  of  the  Rosengarten,  with  Dietrich  von  Bern,  the  dwarf- 
king   Laurin,    Solomon    and    Markolf   (Morold),    Aristotle    and 
Phyllis,   the  Emperor  and  the  Abbot  (as  in  Burger's  ballad  of 
that  name). 

The  '  Sottie/  the  clown-play,  was  acted  on  Carnival  night,  the  ,, 
day  before  the  beginning  of  Lent.     It  originated  in  ,    g0tties 
processions  of  maskers.     Young  people  used  to  go^  Carnival- 
dressed  up  from  house  to  house  and  act  little  plays,       Pla-ys- 
in  return  for  which  they  expected  hospitality  to  be  shown  them. 
In  the  simplest  form  of  these  plays  each  person  merely  recited  a 
speech,  in  which  he  satirically  characterized  the  class  whom  he 
typified.    Lovers,  women,  rustics,  penitents,  and  quack-doctors  were 
favourite  subjects  for  ridicule.     Sometimes  there  is  a  central  char- 
acter round  which  the  others  are  grouped ;  for  instance,  in  one  farce, 
one  maiden  makes  fools  of  a  number  of  men,  while  in  another  the" 
foolish  lovers  all  appear  before  Lady  Venus.     Dialogues  might  be 
introduced,  and  we  even  find  traces  sometimes  of  a  definite  plot, 
as,  for  instance,  when  one  maiden  is  wooed  by  representatives  of 
various  classes,  and  ends  by  taking  the  clerk.     All  these  farces  are  . 
marked  by  a  coarseness   and  indecency  beyond  all  conception. 
This  licence,  which  is  often  apologised  for  at  the  end  of  the  piece, 
was  a  special  feature  of  the  Carnival. 

But  the  German  Carnival-play  was  not  confined  to  Sotties.  The 
four  classes  of  drama  enumerated  above  were  not  so  strictly  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other  in  Germany  as  in  France.     The  whole  , 
of  the  German  secular  Drama  of  the  fifteenth  century  may  bex 
classed  under  the  head  of  Carnival-plays.     All  the  plays  which 

R  2 


244  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vm. 

were  not  connected  with  the  Church-festivals  were  probably  repre- 
sented on  Shrove  Tuesday,  namely  farces,  moralities,  and  even  the 
secular  Mysteries.  And  we  have  evidence  that  even  Biblical  pieces, 
like  the  judgment  of  Solomon,  were  acted  on  the  last  night  of  the 
Carnival.  The  terrible  prophecy  of  Antichrist  was  treated  in  a  comic 
^manner,  and  used  to  ridicule  the  clergy.  Antichrist  was  considered 
as  the  lord  of  Shrove  Tuesday.  Carnival  and  Lent  were  personi- 
fied and  made  to  bring  accusations  against  each  other ;  or  various 
classes  would  lament  over  Carnival-night,  which  leads  them  into 
excesses  that  they  afterwards  regret 

The  festival  of  Carnival-night  was  an  institution  of  bourgeois  ori- 
/  gin,  and  it  was  in  the  great  towns  that  it  was  most  faithfully  observed. 
Moralities  were  produced,  we  know,  from  Reval  on  the  Baltic,  to 
Basle  ;  Liibeck  also  preferred  more  serious  plays  for  Carnival-night. 
Niirnberg,  on  the  contrary,  seems  to  have  been  the  centre  of  comic 
revelry.  It  is  there  alone  that  we  can  mention  writers  of  Carnival- 
Hans  Rosen-  P'ays  by  name,  namely  Hans  Rosenbliit  and  Hans  Folz. 

blut  and      Rosenbliit's  real  name  seems  to  have  been  Schnep- 

Hans  Folz.    perei.(  anc}  ne  was  cnjef  gunmaker  of  the  town  of 

Nurnberg.    Folz  came  from  Worms,  and  was  a  surgeon  and  barber. 

Both  may  be  considered  as  forerunners  of  the  celebrated  shoe- 

'maker  and  Mastersinger  (cf.  chap,  ix,  §  4)  Hans  Sachs,  who,  like 

them,  lived  in  Niirnberg,  and,  like  them,  wrote  many  Carnival-plays, 

Mastersongs,  and  serious  or  comic  poems  in  short  rhymed  couplets. 

In  a  few  single  farces  the  German  drama  of  the  fifteenth  century 

attained  something  approaching  to  a  regular  plot.     But  it  was  the 

German  classical  scholars  who  first  gave  the  drama  a  stricter  form. 

They    made    the   students  at   the    Universities  perform    Roman 

Beuchlin's    comedies,    and   they  themselves   wrote  Latin   plays. 

•Henno,'     The    best    of  these,  Reuchlin's  'Henno'    (acted  in 

*>       1487.        1497),  is  derived  from  a  genuine  French  farce, '  Maitre 

Pathelin,'   well   known   even   at   the   present   day;    this    farce  in 

^  turn  owes  its  origin   to   the   '  Masques '  of  Italian  popular  co- 

medy. 

Maitre  Pathelin,  the  lawyer,  cheats  a  merchant  about  some  cloth, 
and  succeeds  by  a  trick  in  obtaining  the  acquittal  of  a  shepherd 
who  has  been  justly  accused  by  the  same  merchant ;  lie  advises 


Ch.  vin.]  Rise  of  the  Drama.  245 

his  client  to  answer  nothing  but  baa  to  all  questions  put  to  him  in 
court.  But  when  Pathelin  demands  his  fee,  the  shepherd  again 
answers  baa  and  runs  away. 

Reuchlin  was  not  very  successful  in  his  treatment  of  the  subject ; 
he  imitated  Terence,  and  perhaps  from  his  own  knowledge  of 
Italian  comedy  introduced  the  character  of  the  soothsayer.  But, 
thanks  to  the  good  source  from  which  the  play  is  drawn,  it  stands 
far  above  the  mass  of  Latin  and  German  comedies  even  of  the 
sixteenth  century ;  it  was  translated  by  Hans  Sachs,  and  there  are 
two  other  translations  or  adaptations  of  it.  Gottsched  was  not 
wrong,  especially  from  the  standpoint  of  his  own  achievements,  in 
calling  this  play  a  masterpiece. 

In  the  fifteenth  century  Roman  comedy  was  revived  in  modern 
European  literatures,  and  we  meet  with  Plautus  and 
Terence  in  German  garb.      Unfortunately  the  first      jtoman 
^efforts  in  this  direction  remained  also  the  best.     Al-    comedy  in 
'brecht  von  Eyb  (1420  to  1495),  canon  of  Bamberg,      the  15th 
Eichstadt,  and  Wiirzburg,  translated  two  comedies  of 
^Plautus  (the  '  Menaechmi '  and  '  Bacchides ') ;  they  did  not  appear 

till  long  after  his  death,  and  were  then  printed  as  an  . 

Albrecht  von 

appendix  to  his  '  Spiegel  der  Sitten '  ('  Mirror  of  Eyb's  trans- 
Morals ')  in  1511.  He  wrote  them  in  an  easy  flow-  lationsfrom 
ing  prose,  gave  German  names  to  the  heroes  and  au  us" 
heroines  of  Plautus,  and  put  German  sentiments  in  the  mouth  of 
his  Heinzes,  Lutzes,  and  Barbes ;  he  replaced  the  maxims  and  ex- 
'^pressions  of  Plautus  by  German  proverbs  and  popular  illustrations, 
and  thus  Germanised  these  immortal  old  comedies. 

But  these  promising  beginnings  led  no  further.  Albrecht  von 
Eyb  had  written  an  original  prose-work  on  marriage,  and  dedi- 
cated it  to  the  chief  magistrate  of  Niirnberg;  but  neither  as  an 
original  writer  nor  as  a  translator  was  his  example  followed  by  the 
play-writers  of  Niirnberg.  The  German  drama  retained  its  mono- 
tonous doggrel  couplets,  and  was  thus  cut  off  from  all  natural 
freedom  of  speech,  and  from  all  the  charms  of  an  artistically  con- 
structed dialogue.  But  notwithstanding  these  and  other  imperfec- 
vtions  the  drama  was  the  most  influential  form  of  poetry  in  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries,  and  a  certain  tendency  to 


246  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  viu. 

dramatic  treatment  is  noticeable  in  all  branches  of  poetry  at  that 
period. 

SONGS  AND  BALLADS. 


bourgeois  singers  whom  we  first  met  with  in  the  thirteenth 
century  do  not  disappear  even  in  the  sterile  times  of  the  fourteenth 
and  following  centuries.     They  were  the  upholders  of  the  poetic 
tradition.     They  practised  song  -making  as  a  craft,  and  handed 
down  the  technical  art  of  the  Minnesang.     They  were  professional 
The  later     poets,  and  felt  their  importance  as  such.     If  a  man 
Master-      came  to  a  strange  place,  and  claimed  to  be  a  poet, 
singers.      ^e  wag  aske(j  wnere  ne  na(j  learnt  his  art.     And  in 
order  to  bear  the  title  of  Master,  a  man  had  to  produce  certain  fixed 
works  in  the  traditional  departments  of  lyric  poetry. 

A  few  of  these  Masters  were  still  to  be  found  at  this  period  at 
the  courts  of  princes  ;  as  Heinrich  von  Miigeln  in  the  fourteenth, 
.Michel  Beheim  in  the  fifteenth,  and  Jorg  Griinwald  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  But  these  instances  are  rare,  and  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury all  these  poets  had  to  give  place  to  the  court-musicians.  For 
though  they  were  artistic  poets,  they  were  not  artistic  musicians 
such  as  were  now  required  ;  their  songs  were  only  for  one  voice, 
and  the  favour  of  the  art-loving  public  was  now  exclusively  given 
to  part-songs. 

In  the  towns  the  Mastersingers  were  better  able  to  retain  their 

power.     In  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  Mainz  and  the  Upper 

Rhine  in  general  were  held  in  honour  as  the  last  refuge  of  the 

ancient  forms  of  song.     These  songs  might  only  be  written  to  the 

melodies  of  the  earlier  great  masters,  for  all  efforts  after  novelty  in 

music   were  condemned.      These   degenerate   successors   of  the 

great  masters  made  a  sacred  principle  out  of  their  own  incapacity. 

Against  them  there  rose  up  the  Moderns,  who  had  some  con- 

Ancient  and  fi  ^ence  m  their  own  powers,  and  at  least  showed  great 

modern      activity  in  other  provinces  of  literature.     They  wrote 

school  of     Carnival-plays,  and  handed  on  the  stories  of  the  hero- 

tng'  legends,  treating  them  afresh  in  an  abridged  form,  or 

enriching  them  with  their  own  inventions.     These  writers,  who 

gathered  around  the  play-writer  Hans  Rosenbltit  in  Ntirnberg,  fol- 

lowed some  handicraft  beside  their  art.    As  the  public  at  large 


Ch.  viii.]  Songs  and  Ballads.  247 

continued  to  take  less  and  less  interest  in  poetry,  it  became  more 
and  more  the  private  property  of  these  worthy  Mas- 
ters,   and    received    from  them  that   dried-up   form  istics  of  the 
which  lived  on  in  certain  parts  of  Germany  down  to        later 
the  present  century.     The  poetic  art  became  in  their  Meister8alls- 
hands  a  craft,  organized  into  a  guild  like  any  other  craft.     It  was 
these  later  Mastersingers  who  invented  the  strange  idea  of  poetic 
meetings,  and  also  those  extraordinary  names  of  melodies,  those 
artificial  tricks  of  metrical  construction,  which  we  meet  with  in 
German  poetry  towards  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages.     To  them, 
too,  was  due  that  intellectual  barrenness  of  matter,  that  self- con- 
tented revelling  in  the  depths  of  didactic  wisdom  and  in  the  im- 
penetrable mysteries  of  faith. 

Already  in  the  fourteenth  century  these  Masters  began  to  com- 
plain of  the  increasing  usurpations  of  dilettantism.     p 
'  There  lives,'  says  one  of  them,    '  no  peasant  ever  poetry  out- 
so  common,  who  does  not  pretend  to  be  a  singer.'      side  the 
Numerous  evidences  of  the  participation  of  the  people  Meistersan«- 
in  poetry  at  this  period  are  to  be  found  in  many  of  the  songs  that 
have  been  preserved  to  us,  to  which  the  names  of  the  writers  are 
appended  :  a  student,  a  scribe,  a  fisher,  a  miner,  a  baker's  appren- 
tice, a  warrior  bold,  a  rich  peasant's  son,  three  riders  brave  of 
Augsburg,  three  maidens  of  Vienna,  &c.     There  may  be  many 
fictitious  authorships  among  them,  but  the  fiction  would  not  have 
been  possible  without  some  basis  of  reality.     Noblemen,  too,  whom 
we  know  by  name,  continued  the  tradition  of  the  Minnesang ;  such 
were  Oswald  von  Wolkenstein,  whose  romantic  life  is  like  a  fan- 
tastic poem,  Hugo  von  Montfort,  who  had  his  songs  set  to  music 
by  his  servant,  and  a  few  others.       They   too  sometimes  adopt 
the  so-called  popular  tone,  and  Oswald's  poems  have  been  included 
among  the  popular  songs.     But  the  real  representatives  of  popular 
lyric  poetry,  those  who  set  the  example  for  all  the  dilettanti,  were  the 
common  singers,  the  descendants  of  the  '  Vagrants '  of  the  twelfth 
century,  the '  Gumpelmanner,'  of  whom  we  hear  so  many  complaints 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  the  '  Bankelsanger  '  (ballad-     « Bankei- 
singers)  of  the  sixteenth  century,  who  did  not  shine       sanger.' 
by  their  learning,  but  whose  object  was  solely  to  find  favour  in  the 


248  The  Close  of  tlte  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vm. 

widest  circles.     These  singers  played  for  dancing,  and  it  was  then 
The '  Volks-  too  that  they  sang  those  songs  which  are  generally 

lieder.'  known  as  the  '  Volkslieder '  (people's  songs)  of  the 
fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and  sixteenth  centuries,  and  which  were  also 
sung  in  chorus  by  the  dancers.  There  could  hardly  have  existed 
a  distinct  line  of  separation  between  the  Mastersingers  and  these 
ballad-singers ;  the  Masters  sometimes  condescended  to  write 
simple  poems,  and  probably  it  was  just  those  lighter  songs  which 
they  themselves  considered  inferior,  that  attained  a  wide  popularity. 
And  there  is  no  other  distinguishing  mark  by  which  the 
'Volkslied'  may  be  known,  but  wide  dissemination  and  general 
favour. 

The  singers  of  the  twelfth  century  were  the  descendants  of  the 
wandering  clerks  of  the  Archpoet's  stamp,  and  it  was  through  these 

Various  rninstrels  that  many  of  the  forms  developed  by  the  Latin 
classes  of  the  poetry  of  that  time  were  adopted  in  the '  Volkslieder  ;' 
'  Voiksiied.  gucjj  were  the  drinking-song,  the  '  Streitgedicht '  (cf. 
p.  47),  frivolous  love-ballads,  poetry  mixing  Latin  and  German,  as 
in  the  song  :  '  In  dulci  jubilo,  nun  singet  und  seid  froh,'  part-songs, 
in  which  the  singers  enthusiastically  praised  their  free,  wandering 
life,  and  thus  incited  other  classes  to  the  same  self-exaltation.  The 
repertoire  of  these  singers  further  comprised  what  were  called 
'Priameln'  (short  epigrammatic  poems  on  all  subjects),  and  'Liigen- 
lieder '  (lying  songs),  as  well  as  riddles,  fables,  and  parables,  and 
songs  of  praise  or  censure  with  allusions  to  public  and  private  life. 

In  the '  Volkslied,'  as  in  the  fable,  animals,  plants,  and  even  inani- 
mate objects,  are  endowed  with  speech.     Parables  and 

General  J        ' 

character-    a  parabolic  form  of  expression  are  also  very  common. 

istics  of  the  Now,  as  in  the  twelfth  century,  we  find  a  lady  speak - 
Voiksiied.  m^  Qf  jlgr  jover  un(jer  the  symbol  of  a  falcon ;  and 
the  lover  who  must  part  from  his  beloved,  describes  himself  as  an 
owlet  who  has  tumbled  from  the  branch  where  he  used  to 
rest.  The  '  Volkslieder '  are  full  of  this  kind  of  figurative 
language. 

From  the  earliest  times  the  gleemen  or  popular  singers  had  been 
the  patrons  of  comic  poetry ;  and  the  comic  elements  of  the 
'  Volkslied,'  like  those  of  the  Carnival-play,  are  closely  related  to  the 


Ch.  VIIL]  Songs  and  Ballads.  249 

poetry  of  Neidhart,  and  the  satires  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  ^ 
leading  features  of  Neidhart's  dance-songs,  coquettish  girls,  clumsy 
peasants,  strings  of  bad  names,  women's  quarrels — all  lived  on  in  the 
'  Volkslieder.'  In  them,  as  in  Tannhauser's  poems,  we  meet  with 
parodies  of  the  Minnesang,  descriptions  of  domestic  misery,  names 
of  comic  import,  as  Seldomsober,  Beat-the-guest,  and  others  of  the 
same  sort.  The  praises  of  autumn  and  the  eating-songs,  where 
the  host  is  called  and  the  various  dishes  are  ordered,  remind  us  of 
the  Minnesinger  Steimar.  This  class  of  songs  received  a  strange 
addition  in  the  songs  for  the  feast  of  the  Michaelmas-goose.  In 

fact   everything  in   the  Minnesang,  which  owed  its 

....  ...  ,        Connection 

origin  to  the  gleemen,  or  was  written  in  the  popular  between  tne     / v 

tone,  meets    us   again    in    the   '  Volkslieder/      We    Voiksiie- 

find  the  refrain,  the  announcement  of  the  seasons,  the   der  and  tne 
,  .       ,  ,  .        Minnesang. 

same  epic  and  dramatic  elements,  and  the  same  pic- 
torial and  graphic  tendency.  The  parting-songs  (Schetdelieder) 
of  the  Minnesingers  received  a  rich  after-growth  in  these  later 
popular  songs,  and  it  was  only  in  them  that  a  breath  of  Walther's 
poetry  still  lingered ;  we  even  find  his  beautiful  summer  dance- 
song  reproduced  trait  for  trait,  in  later  popular  poems.  But  the 
popular  singers  also  tried  to  appropriate  some  of  those  elements 
of  the  Minnesang  which  were  derived  from  the  French;  they 
carried  into  wider  spheres  that  colourless  phrase  the  '  service '  of 
the  lover,  as  also  the  idea  of  envious  and  malicious  tongues, 
the  short  alternating  dialogue  which  owed  its  origin  to  the  chival- 
rous epic,  and  above  all  the  '  Tagelied.' 

The  women  of  these  popular  love-songs,  are  not  mostly  married 
women,  as  in  the  poems  of  the  Minnesingers ;  they      Popular 
are,  as  a  rule,  young  maidens,  who  are  not  only  praised,    love-songs, 
but  also  turned  to  ridicule  and  blamed.      The  woes  of  love  do  not 
here  arise  from  the  capricious  coyness  of  the  fair  one,  but  are  called 
forth  by  parting,  jealousy,  or  faithlessness.     Feeling  is   stronger 
than  in  the  Minnesang,  and  seeks  accordingly  for  stronger  modes 
of  expression.     The  range  of  permitted  subjects  and  recognised^ 
forms  of  expression  is  enlarged,  and  a  wider  scope  is  given  to 
imagination.     The  'Volkslieder'  offer  many  instances  of  a  very 
primitive  form  of  poetry  (cp.  p.  5),  namely  a  picture  from  nature 


250  The  Close  of  tlie  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vin. 

in  direct,  sometimes  in  unconnected  juxtaposition  with  an  incident 
of  human  life  ;  the  following  lines  may  serve  as  an  instance  : 

'  Three  leaves  upon  a  linden-tree,  they  flourished  fair  to  see ; 
The  maiden  blithely  leapt  and  danced,  her  heart  was  full  of  glee.' 

And  we  often  find  longer  poems  opening  with  such  descriptions  of 
nature  as  the  following,  revealing  a  whole  landscape  to  our  eyes  in 
a  few  words : 

'  There  stands  a  tree  in  yonder  vale,' 
or, 

'There  lies  a  town  in  Austrian  land,' 
or  again, 

'Up  yonder  on  the  mountain  there  stands  a  stately  honse.' 

By  this  word  '  yonder '  the  scene  is  at  once  brought  immediately 
before  our  eyes.  In  other  ways,  too,  these  poets  do  their  utmost 
to  produce  a  vivid  impression,  and  especially  at  the  beginning  of  a 
Doem.  The  song  often  opens  with  a  question,  an  exclamation,  an 
address,  or  a  short  sentence  which  takes  us  at  once  in  medias  res. 
It  is  also  a  favourite  device  to  begin  with  the  words,  '  I  heard,'  or 
'  I  know,'  thus  bringing  the  subject  within  the  poet's  own  experience. 
These  popular  poets  always  draw  with  bold,  sometimes  with 
coarse  strokes.  Words  of  importance  are  repeated  to  make 
7them  more  effective,  and  graphic  realism  is  aimed  at  throughout. 
Much  is  left  to  the  reader's  imagination,  and  thus  the  connection 
between  the  various  details  of  the  song  is  often  not  apparent,  though 
the  general  meaning  may  be  quite  intelligible,  and  every  detail 
clear  by  itself;  the  song,  'Ich  hort'  ein  Sichelein  rauschen/  is 
a  good  instance  of  this. 

This  method  of  leaving  much  to  the  hearer's  imagination  is 
one  of  the  most  effective  features  in  these  popular  songs.  The 
sensuous  is  expressed,  and  the  spiritual  significance  must  be  in- 
ferred. Lovers  speak  less  of  their  feelings  than  of  wreath  or  ring. 
Some  songs  reveal  a  whole  human  destiny  in  a  short  dramatic 
dialogue. 

The  striving  after  brevity,  which  is  so  marked  a  feature  in 
the  'Volkslied,'  caused  a  corresponding  popularity  of  the  Ballad, 
which  in  the  Minnesang  had  been  almost  entirely  confined  to 
the  one  form  of  the  '  Tagelied.'  We  know  for  certain  that 


Ch.  viii.]  Songs  and  Ballads.  251 

about  the  year  1360  shorter  songs  of  three  verses  came  into 
fashion.  In  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries  the  heroic  songs  had 
shrunk  in  compass,  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  they  had 
again  attained  epic  breadth,  and  now  they  were  once  more 
confined  to  narrower  limits.  The  poems  about  Ballads 
Herzog  Ernst,  which  had  been  expanded  to  6000  based  on  the 
rhymed  lines,  now  sank  to  819  stanzas  (1068  heroic 
lines),  or  even  to  54  stanzas  (648  lines),  i.  e.  to  a  egen  8' 
sixth  or  a  tenth  of  their  former  extent.  In  the  same  manner, 
short  narratives  and  poetic  tales  were  now  transformed  into 
ballads  written  in  stanzas.  The  story  of  the  murdered  lover 
whose  heart  is  set  before  his  lady  to  eat,  already  told  by  Konrad 
von  Wiirzburg  in  rhymed  couplets,  now  appears  again  in  the 
popular  ballads.  The  melancholy  character  of  most  of  these 
ballads,  and  the  fact  that  they  most  of  them  deal  with  matters 
of  love,  lead  us  to  place  their  origin  in  the  sentimental  thirteenth 
century.  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  Hero  and  Leander,  were  favourite  , 
stories.  The  'Tagelied'  was  now  made  to  embrace  all  the 
meetings  of  the  lovers,  from  the  first  tryst  down  to  the  tragic 
ending,  and  many  other  new  features  and  fresh  incidents  were 
introduced  in  the  ballad-poetry  of  this  period. 

The  names  of  four  of  the  Minnesingers  lived  on  in  popular  poetry. 
The  first  was  Reinmar  von  Brennenberg,  a  Bavarian     Reminis- 
lyric  poet,  to  whom  is  attributed   the  story  of  the  cences  of  the 

lover's   heart   mentioned   above.      The   second   and       Minne- 

TT  •     •  i  »«•  j    /-.      c  •    j     singers  in 

third  were    Hemnch  von  Morungen   and    Gottfried     the  later 

von  Neifen,  whose  names  are  preserved  in  the  song  popular 
of  the  noble  Moringer,  who  returns  from  the  East  poetry, 
just  in  time  to  prevent  his  wife  from  contracting  a  second  mar- 
riage with  the  young  lord  of  Neifen;  in  this  song  two  genuine 
stanzas  of  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  are  put  into  the  mouth 
of  the  hero.  The  fourth  Minnesinger,  whose  memory  was  pre- 
served by  the  popular  poetry,  was  Tannhauser;  a  penitential 
poem  attributed  to  him  had  been  handed  down  together  with 
his  frivolous  dance-songs,  and  this  gave  rise  to  a  story  that  he 
had  in  later  life  bidden  farewell  to  the  world  like  Walther  von 
der  Vogelweide.  This  story  suggested  to  one  of  the  popular 


252  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  VIIL 

poets  the  idea  of  introducing  Tannhauper's  'Farewell  to  Lady 
Venus/  and  in  giving  an  account  of  Tannhauser's  penance, 
he  took  the  opportunity  of  inveighing,  like  Freidank,  against 
the  pope's  cruelty  and  holding  up  the  mercy  of  God  in  contrast. 
The  pope  has  a  dry  staff  in  his  hand,  and  declares  to  the 
penitent  Tannhauser :  '  As  little  as  this  staff  can  bud,  so  little 
can  you  obtain  God's  mercy.'  But  on  the  third  day  the  staff 
begins  to  bud ;  the  pope  sends  out  in  search  of  Tannhauser, 
but  all  in  vain,  for  he  has  returned  to  the  mountain  of  Lady 
Venus. 

^   In  the  '  Volkslieder '  it  was  no  longer  remembered  that  Brennen- 
berg,  Morungen,    Neifen,  and   Tannhauser  were   poets ;    but   in 
preserving  their  names  the  '  Volkslied '  was  really  looking  back  on 
Summary  of  *ts  own  c^ass'ca'  period.     The  '  Volkslieder,'  as  we 
the  history   know  them  from  the  collections  of  the  fifteenth  and 
of  the     ^  sixteenth  centuries,  are  often  faulty  and  inartistic;  it 
is   quite   clear   that   verses   have   been    added,    that 
phrases  and  incidents  of  various  or  gin   have  been  patched  to- 
gether, that  good  plans  have  been   badly  carried  out;  in  short, 
that  splendid  material  has  been  misused  and  handed  down  in  a 
mutilated  form.      On  the  other  hand,  the  little  which  is   known 
to  us   of  the  popular  lyric  poetry  of   the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  is   not  inferior  to  the   Mmnesang   in   correctness   and 
perfection  of  form. 

As  the  epic  poetry  of  the  gleemen  attained  its  perfection  in 
the  Nibelungenlied,  '  Gudrun,'  and  '  Albhart's  death,'  so,  too,  their 
lyric  poetry  probably  reached  its  zenith  about  1200,  the  period 
to  which  the  popular  poems  of  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  be- 
long. But  during  the  thirteenth  century  we  can  hardly  trace  it  except 
by  its  influence  on  the  chivalrous  poetry.  It  was  only  with  the 
total  decay  of  the  latter,  and  the  simultaneous  rise  of  the  lower 
classes  in  the  towns,  that  the  '  Volkslied '  came  into  prominence. 

(  After  the  third  decade  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  political  poems, 
the  so-called  historical  '  Volkslieder,'  become  more  numerous ; 
and  Tilemann  Elhem  von  Wolfhagen,  the  writer  of  the  Limburg 
Chronicle,  tells  us  of  some  popular  songs  that  came  into  existence 
between  1350  and  1380.  In  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth 


Ch.  viii.]  Rhymed  Couplets.  253 

century,  the  power  of  the  popular  songs  was  so  great  that  they 
exercised  an  influence  on  religious  poetry.  But  soon  afterwards 
we  meet  with  inferior  songs,  consisting  only  of  well-worn  phrases. 
The  political  songs  are  generally  descriptions  of  battles,  seldom 
more  than  very  dry  reports  with  lists  of  those  who  distinguished 
themselves,  and  numerous  details,  which  were  of  more  interest 
perhaps  to  the  poet's  immediate  audience  than  they  are  to  pos- 
terity. Hatred  and  passion  seldom  attain  artistic  expression  in  the 
'  Volkslieder,'  and  there  is  hardly  any  trace  of  narrative-talent 
which  would  bring  the  events  vividly  before  us.  There  is  little 
in  this  political  poetry  that  rises  above  the  level  of  rhymed  prose. 
The  ballad,  too,  soon  fell  into  neglect  again,  and  the  love-song  f 
greatly  deteriorated  in  the  hands  of  the  sober  burghers  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  The  ardour  of  passion  seems  damped,  and 
feelings  are  expressed  in  sententious  and  pedantic  language; 
the  songs  become  more  and  more  artificial  and  affected.  Here 
too,  prose  gradually  gained  ground,  till  in  the  second  half  of 
the  sixteenth  century  romanic  models  began  to  assert  their 
power. 


RHYMED  COUPLETS. 

The  rhymed  couplets  of  epic  poetry  were  made  to  answer  almost 
all   the  purposes  to  which  the  stanzas  of  the  singer  had  been~ 
turned  ever  since  the  fourteenth  century.     Corresponding  to  the 
love-song,  we  have  the  love-letter,  which  already,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  had  begun  to  avail  itself  of  this  couplet-form.     Political 
subjects  could  be  more  effectively  handled  in  this  form  than  in 
that  of  the  stanza.     Tales  and  farces,  fables,  satires,  allegories, 
and  didactic  poems  remained  faithful  to  these  rhymed    Decline  of 
couplets,  though  they  could  not  hinder  the  gradual     the  epic, 
encroachments   of  prose.      In  the  fifteenth  century  epic   poetry 
became  well-nigh  extinct,   and  had   to  give  place  to  the  prose 
novel. 

One  single  important  epic  appeared  in  Flanders,  shortly  before 
the  Reformation,  and  has  since  then  continued  to  assert  its  place 


254  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vin. 

in  German  literature :   the   epic    of  Reineke   Fuchs.     It   is   not 
Flemish     mdeed  an  original  poem;  the  Low-German  provinces 
Epic  of      drew  their  poetry  almost  entirely  from  foreign  sources. 
Reineke     High-German  and  Dutch  romantic  tales  were  tran- 
scribed into  Low-German,  and  translations  of  Latin 
fables  were  made  in  the  same  dialect.     The  predilection  for  poetry 
about  animals,  together  with  that  delight  in  law-processes  which 
we   have   already  noticed   in   connection  with  the  plays  of  this 
period,  rendered  the  story  of  Reineke  Fuchs  a  specially  attractive 
theme ;  the  story  could  boast  of  a  long  history,  and  had  already 
once  before  this  been  introduced  into  Germany  (cp.  p.  146). 
.      The  JEsopian  fable  of  the  sick  lion,  who,  on  the  advice  of  the 

fox,  is  cured  by  a  fresh  wolfs  skin,  had  come  from 
Origin  ot  * 

the  story  of  India  to  Greece,  had  then  passed  to  Italy,  and  from 
Heynard     thence,  in  the  eighth  century  at  the  latest,  to  Ger- 
ox>      many.     About  940  the  story  appears  in  a  short  Latin 
epic,  by  a  monk,  in  which  he  narrates,   under  the   form   of  an 
Latin  ver-    animal-fable,  his  flight  from  his  monastery  at  Toul. 
sion,  940.     It  was  probably  at  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury that  the  chief  characters  of  the  fable,  the  Wolf  and  the  Fox, 
acquired  in  Flanders  their  German  names  of  'Isengrim'  (he  with 
the  iron  visor)  and  'Reinhart'  (the  very  hard,  invincible  in  cunning). 
'Isen    imus'  *n   IX4^   Master  Nivardus  of  Ghent  completed  his 
in  Flanders,  Latin   poem   '  Isengrimus,'  in  which   this   fable  ap- 
1148.        pears,   enlarged   by   the    addition   of    many  others, 
and  thus  raised  to  the  rank  of  an  epic.      The  monks   were   the 
''originators  of  the  epics  of  animal-life ;  they  described  their  own  life  in 
the  fable  of  the  Wolf  turned  monk,  and  made  the  fable  of  the  lion's 
illness  into  a  satire  of  court-life.     But  the  story  of  Reynard  the 
Fox  was  also  seized  on  by  the  poets  of  the  chivalrous  period  as 
an  excellent  subject  for  epic  treatment.     In  France  it  gained  such 

popularity  that   the    Flemish    word   renard    became 
Heinrich  der  \  J    , 

Olichezare's  tne    general  name  for  the  fox  there,  instead  of  the 

•  Beinhart    Old  French  word  goupil  (Latin  vulpes).  It  was  from 

Fuchs,' 12th  French  SOurces  that  the  Alsatian  gleeman,  Heinrich 

der  Glichezare,  in  the    twelfth  century,  derived  the 

materials  for  his  Middle  High-German  poem  '  Reinhart  Fuchs.'  And 


Ch.  viii.]  Rhymed  Couplets.  255 

it  was  a  French  poem  written  by  the  priest,  Pierre  de  St.  Cloud, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  which  was  used  by 

the  Flemish  poet  Willem,  as  the  basis  for  his  Flemish 

Willem  s 

poem   'Reinaert'  (1250).     This   remarkable   poem,      Flemish 
which  far  excelled  its  French  original,  was  remodelled        poem 
and  continued  by  an   inferior  poet  about  the   year 

, 

1380;    this  later  poem,   again,  was   furnished   with 
a  prose  commentary  in  1480,  and  a  Low-German  translation  of 
it   was   printed   and   published   at   Ltibeck  in    1498.      In    1544 
Michael  Beuther  made  a  bad  High-German  version  of  the  same* 
poem,  and  in  1566   it  was  excellently  translated   into  Latin  by^ 
Hartmann  Schopper.     The   interest   in   the  story  continued  un- 
abated till  Goethe  wrote  his  '  Reinecke  Fuchs'  in  hexameters,  and 
thus  returned  to  some  extent  to  the  style  of  the  tenth  century. 

Since  Willem's  work,  the  story  of  the  sick  lion  no  longer  formed 
the  centre  of  the  fable,  which  was  devoted  almost      various 
exclusively  to  the  misdeeds  of  the  fox,  ending  with     phases  of 
his  being  outlawed.    The  poet  who  continued  Willem's    the  8tory- 
work  altered  the  conclusion,  and  made  the  fox  return  again  to 
court,  and  attain  to  new  honours  by  his  triumph  over  Isengrim  in 
single  combat.     In  the  tenth  century,  the  fable  had  glorified  the 
sly,  cruel  fox  and  made  him  come  out  triumphant  ;  in  Willem's 
•work  the  requirements  of  justice  are  satisfied,  and  the  evil  doer  is 
outlawed  ;  but  Willem's  successor  made  him  triumph  again,  an  . 
evidence  that  in  the  fourteenth  century  the  moral  standard  had 
sunk  again  to  what  it  had  been  in  the  tenth. 

High-German  poetry  of  this  class  produced  no  work  coming  up 

to  the  level  of  Reineke  Fuchs,  but,  on  the  other  hand, 

,       .  ,  ,...,.  Heinrich 

its  productions  show  more  of  originality.     A  poem 


like  Heinrich  Wittenweiler's  '  Ring  '  (fifteenth  century),      weiler*s 
represents  to  a  certain  extent  a  new  department  of  '  Rin&'  15th 
poetry.     The  satiric  tale,  after  the  style  of  '  Meier 
Helmbrecht,'  has    here  advanced  to  the  level  of  the  burlesque 
epic.     The  story  runs  thus  :  A  peasant  wedding  gives  rise  to  a 
war  between  the  two  villages  of  Lappenhausen  and  Nissingen; 
both  collect  troops  from  all  parts,  and  epic  heroes  such  as  Hilde- 
brand  and  Dietrich  von  Bern,  are  represented  as  espousing  one 


256  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vin. 

side  or  the  other ;  Lappenhausen  is  destroyed,  the  bridegroom 
Bertschi  Triefnas  alone  escapes,  and  becomes  a  hermit  in  the 
Black  Forest.  Many  of  the  scenes  in  this  poem  might  easily  be 

transformed  into  short  dramas,  such  as  were  in  vogue 
Influence  of         ,         .  on  «•        •  •  i 

the  popular  at  tnat  time-     Smaller  poems,  too,  of  satiric  tendency 

drama  on     were  often  written  in  the  manner  of  Carnival-plays. 

other  kinds  Many  allegorical  poems  of  this  period  of  the  kind  which 
of  poetry.  ,r  TTr 

we  have  already  noticed  among  Konrad  von  Wiirz- 

burg's  writings  (see  p.  182)  could,  with  little  trouble.be  turned  into 
Moralities.     Such  are,  for  instance,  the  poems  in  which  the  author 
describes  himself  going  out  of  a  morning,  and  meeting  with  mytho- 
logical characters   or  personified  virtues,  from   whom  he  learns 
maxims  of  trivial  wisdom.     There  is  a  Swiss  satire  on  all  classes, 
^written  at  the  time  of  the  Council  of  Constance  ( 1 4  r  4  to  1 4 1 8),  which 
Swiss  satire  •  m  'ts  P^an  cl°sety  resembles  a  Morality-play;  it  is  called 
'DesTeufei's  'The  Devil's  Net/  and  is  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue 
Netz/  circa  between  a  hermit  and  the  devil.     The  Swabian  poet, 
Hermann  von  Sachsenheim,  who   died  in  the  year 
1458,  wrote  some  poems  of  a  semi-didactic  character  in  which  he 
Hermann     adopted  the  form  of  the  legal  trial  so  much  in  favour 
von  Sachsen-  with  the  writers  of  Carnival-plays ;    in  his  '  Mirror/ 
I1™8,     written  after  1451,  the  poet  has  to  answer  the  charge 
and          of  disloyalty  before  an  allegorical  character  ;    in  his 
'Mohrin'    'Mohrin'  (1453)  Lady  Venus  accuses   him   before 
(1453).       King  Tannhauser  of  inconstancy  in  love.     Hermann 
von  Sachsenheim  was  a  scholar  who  had  been  at  the  University 
and  had  received  a  special  education  in  law. 

Another  South-German  scholar,  also  a  student  of  law,  Dr. 
Sebastian  Brand  of  Strassburg,  sought  to  impart  new  life  to  the 
whole  of  popular  didactic  poetry.  Brand  studied  and  lived  at 
Basle  till  1501,  when  he  was  recalled  to  Strassburg,  where  he  died 

as   town-clerk   in    1521.     He   translated   the   moral 
Sebastian  .   _     .  .          .       - 

Brand's      maxims  of  Cato  (a  mediaeval  Latin  poem),  and  a  few 

'Narren-     subsequent   moral    writings,   modernised    Freidank's 

schiff '        « Bescheidenheit/  and  himself  wrote  the  '  Ship  of  Fools/ 

which  was   published   in   1494.      Through  a  Latin 

translation,  which  appeared  in  1497,  this  poem  attained  a  European 


Ch.  viii.]  Rhymed  Couplets.  257 

reputation.     It  is  based  on  the  plan  of  the  Sottie,  more  especially 
of  that  form  of  farce  in  which  many  fools  were  grouped  together 
in  one  framework.     The  idea  of  a  number  of  fools  going  on  board 
a  ship  had  probably  already  been  introduced  in  carnival  amuse^ 
ments  of  the  Upper  and  Lower  Rhine,  and  certainly  was  not  new 
to  literature.     About  this  time  also  moral  picture- sheets  were  pub-  . 
lished,  in  which  human  vices  were  represented  as  figures  in  fool's 
dress.     All  that  Brand  did  was  to  expand  the  rhyme  which  accom- 
panied these  woodcuts  into  a  satire  on  various  types  of  human 
character.     There  are  over  a  hundred  fools  on  the  ship,  which  is 
sailing  past  '  Schlaraffenland '  (land  of  idlers)  to  '  Narragonien '  C 
(Fool's  land),  and  Sebastian  Brand  introduces  them  individually  to 
the  reader  :  there  is  the  book -fool,  the  miser-fool,  the  fashion-fool, 
the   spoiler   of   children,    &c.      Sometimes   we   seem   completely 
transported  into  the  Carnival-play,  for  instance,  when  the  various 
fools  describe  themselves,  or  when  Venus  appears  in  their  ranks 
and  is  represented  on  the  accompanying  wood-cut  leading   two 
fools  and  a  monk  "in  a  leash;    for  Brand  has  added  wood-cuts  . 
which  take  the  place  of  the  actual  appearance  in  the  drama,  and 
are  as  much  an  integral  part  of  the  work  as  the  text  itself. 

Similar  in  style  to  Brand's  poem,  but  still  more  dramatic,  is  the 

Franciscan  Thomas  Murner's  '  Exorcism  of  Fools ; '  , 

Murner  a 

here  again  we  have  a  series  of  pictures  of  fools,  with     « Narren- 
elucidatory  verses  to  each  picture.     In  other  works     beschwo- 
of  Murner's  the  fools  are  replaced  by  vagabonds  and  r  ing' 
rogues.     Murner  had  more  poetical  talent  than  Brand,  in  whose 
writings  the  rhyme  is  the  only  thing  to  remind  us  of  poetry.     But"" 
while  Murner  used  to  throw  off  his  works  hastily,  Brand  worked 
most  conscientiously  and  endeavoured  to  make  his  book  a  com-^ 
pendium  of  moral  wisdom.     Like  some  of  the  didactic  poets  of 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  he  drew  from  the  Bible  and  , 
from  the  classical   authors,  turning   extracts   into   easy  German 
verse,  and  making  use  of  the  proverb-form  when  convenient.     His, 
writings,  like  Murner's,  are  uncouth  in  form,  and  show  no  idea  of 
euphony  or  style.     All  the  same,  he  fell  in  thoroughly  with  the 
taste  of  his  contemporaries,  and  he  is  one  of  the  most  influential 
writers  in  earlier  German  literature. 

s 


258  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vm. 

^   While  the  spirit  and  the  characters  of  the  Carnival-play  made 
their  way  into  didactic  poetry,  the  ideas  of  the  Morality-play  were 
reflected  in  the  epic.     The  taste  for  serious  epic  poetry  had  not  yet 
entirely  died  out.     In  Bavaria  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  and  his 
school  were  still  held  in  high  repute.     A  worshipper 
Later  imi-    of  -Wolfram,  Piiterich   von    Reicherzhausen,  was   a 
chivalrous    zealous  collector  of  Middle  High-German  chivalrous 
poetry.       poetry,  and   about   1480  a  Munich   painter,  Ulrich 
Fiitrer,  wrote  at  the  bidding  of  Duke  Albrecht  IV 
a  comprehensive  cyclic  work  on  the  Round  Table,  the  last  echo  of 
the  chivalrous  epic  poetry.     But  the  true  representative  of  the 
Maxi-       Middle  High-German  tradition  in  this  period  is  the 
miliani.     emperor  Maximilian  I  (1493-1519),  who  in  poetry  as 
in  real  life  deserves  the  honourable  title  of  '  last  of  the  knights.' 
The  'Am-    He  ordered  the  writing  in  Tyrol  of  the  '  Ambraser 
'   braser  Hel-   Heldenbuch  '  (so  called  from  the  castle  of  Ambras  in 
denbuch.'     Tyrol,  where  it  was  long  kept) ;  this  book  is  a  collec- 
tion of  the  best  popular  and  chivalrous  poems  of  the  Middle  High- 
German  period,  and  the  knowledge  it  affords  us  is  quite  inestimable. 
Maximilian    also  described  his  own  life  from  various  points  of 
view;  in  the  rhymed  epic  Theuerdank  he  narrated  his  personal 
experiences,  in  the  '  Weisskunig,'  a  prose  work,  he  gave  the  history 
of  his  wars,  and  in  a  Latin  prose  work,  of  which  we  have  but 
uncertain  record,  he  probably  related  the  peaceful  acts  of  his  reign. 
The  '  Weiss-  In  tne  '  Weisskunig '  the  emperor  himself  and  the  other 
kunig.'       European  sovereigns  are  called  by  the  names  of  various 
colours,  and  thus  concealed  as  it  were  behind  a  mask ;  this  work 
•  Theuer-     did  not  appear  in  print  till  1775.    The  '  Theuerdank,' 
dank '  (1517).  in  the  writing  of  which  Maximilian's  secretaries,  Mel- 
chior  Pfinzing  and  Marx  Treizsauerwein  took  part,  was  published 
in  1517,  and  soon  gained  the  favour  of  the  German  public.     A 
number  of  incidents  and  adventures  in  Maximilian's  life  are  here 
connected  together  by  a  thread  of  romantic  narrative,  full  of  alle- 
gorical figures.    The  noble  hero  Theuerdank,  i.  e.  Maximilian,  woos 
the  queen  Ehrenreich,  which  means  that  he  strives  after  honour ; 
he  holds  his  own  against  the  Evil  Spirit,  who  comes  to  him  in  the 
guise  of  a  learned  doctor,  and  also  successfully  resists  the  Devil's 


ch.  vin.]  Prose.  259 

captains,  Fiirwittig  (Vorwitz,  imprudence),  Unfalo  (Un/all,  mis- 
chance), and  Neidelhart  (Anfeindung,  enmity).  The  personifica- 
tions in  '  Theuerdank '  remind  us  of  a  Morality-play,  while  the 
attacks  of  the  Devil  and  his  companions  offer  some  points  of 
resemblance  even  to  a  Passion-play:  Theuerdank  repels  the 
Tempter  very  much  in  the  same  manner  as  Christ  does. 

'  Theuerdank '    is    a    somewhat   strange    last   product   of    the 
chivalrous   epic   poetry.     At  the  time  when  it  was  written,  the 
poems  of  the  Middle  High-German   period  were  endeavouring, 
through  the  means  of  printing,  to  assert  their  power  once  more  in 
a  world  which  had  been  totally  transformed.     But  it  was  only  the 
Didactic  poetry  of  that  period,  as  represented  in  the 
Fable-writer   Boner,   in    Hugo   von   Trimberg    and        some 
Freidank,  that  found  acceptance  in  these  later  times.  Middle  High- 

'Parzival'  and  the   later  'Titurel'  were  printed  in      <*e«nan 

poems. 
1477,  but  not  again  after  that.     Of  the  heroes  of  the 

popular  epics,  only  Ortnit  and  Wolfdietrich  lived  on  in  the  collec- 
tion of  stories  called  the  '  Heldenbuch.'  With  the  The'Helden- 
sole  exception  of  Neidhart's  poems,  the  Minnesang  buch.' 
had  no  interest  for  the  general  public  of  this  period.  The  works 
of  Hartmann  and  Gottfried  disappeared  from  the  horizon  of  the 
reader ;  '  Herzog  Ernst,'  on  the  contrary,  together  with  Wirent  von 
Grafenberg's  '  Wigalois,'  and  Eilhard  von  Oberge's  '  Tristan/  were 
preserved  in  their  original  freshness  owing  to  the  fact  that  in  the 
fifteenth  century  they  were  turned  into  prose. 


PROSE. 

As  early  as  the  thirteenth  century  there  existed  a  German  prose 
romance,    whose    hero    Lanzelet    was    one    of  the    The  prose 
knights  of  Arthur's  Round  Table.     But  it  was  not  till    Bomanoe, 
the  fifteenth  century  that  the  prose-romance,  the  true  !5th century, 
novel,  attained  any  real  importance.     The  great  literary  activity 
in  the  province  of  the  chivalrous  epic  ceased  about  1350,  and  a 
new  literary  force  then  arose  in  the  prose-romances,  drawn  from 
French,  Italian,  and  Latin  sources.     They  were  first  produced  in 

S  2 


26o  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [ch.  vm. 

aristocratic  circles,  but  became  popular  in  the  course  of  the  six- 
The  '  Volks-  teenth  century,  and  have  been  preserved  down  to  our 
bucb-er.'  own  time  in  cheap  editions,  which  were  sold  in  large 
quantities  at  the  annual  fairs ;  owing  to  this  fact  they  were  usually 
called  '  people's  books  '  (  Volksbiicher). 

Many  stories  which  had  already  been  treated  in  verse  now  ap- 
peared in  new  prose-translations,  often  drawn  from' 
Favourite     ' 
characters  of  different  sources.     We  meet  again  with  Alexander  the 

'  the  prose-     Great,  Solomon  and  Markolf,  Flore  and  Blancheflur, 
romance.     Apollonius   of  Tyre   and  the  seven  Wise  Masters. 
The  pair  of  devoted  friends  celebrated  in  chivalrous  poetry  under 
the  names  of  Amicus  and  Amelius,  or  Athis  and  Prophilias,  or,  as 
in  Konrad  von  Wurzburg,  Engelhard  and  Dietrich,  come  before  us 
^in  the  prose-romances  as  Olivier  and  Arthur.     The  pair  of  much- 
tried  lovers,  who  are  at  length  happily  united,  go  by  the  names  of 
Pontus  and  Sidonia.     The  fairy  woman,  who  is  married  to  an 
^earthly  man,  and  has  to  leave  him  again  because  he  does  not 
simply  trust  her,  is  called  Melusine.     The  legends  of  the  Carlo- 
vingian   princes  supplied  the  material  for  the  stories  of  '  Lother 
„  and  Mailer,'  and   'Valentine  and  Orson.'     Hugh  Capet  appears 
under  the  name  of  Hugh  Schapler  as  a  butcher's  son,  who  gains 
the  throne  by  his  bravery. 

Fortunatus  too,  the  possessor  of  the  inexhaustible  purse  and  of 
Eastern      trie  wishing-cap  which  makes  the  wearer  invisible,  now 
stories.       appears  among  the  foreign  heroes.     The  Indian  col- 
lection of  tales  called  '  Pantschatantra,'  after  going  through  many 
Translations  intermediate  stages,  finally  passed  into  German  as  a 
from        book  of  parables  of  the  old  sages.   Boccaccio's  '  Deca- 
'Dec  merone'  found  a  translator,  and  the  tales  of  Patient 

rone.'        Griseldis,  and  of  the  unfortunate  pair  of  lovers,  Guis- 
cardo  and  Ghismonda,  excited  the  deepest  sympathy.     The  excel- 
'  Buryalus    ^ent  ^ove'slory  °f  '  Euryalus  and  Lucretia,'  by  ./Eneas 
and  Lucre-  Sylvius  (afterwards  Pope  Pius  II),  was  translated  into 
tia,'  by  Pope  German  and  eagerly  read ;  no  German  writer  of  the 
time  possessed  the  talent  for  psychological  analysis 
'displayed  in  this  work.     What  the  public  desired,  and  what  the 
translators  supplied  them  with,  was  thrilling  incidents,  amusement, 


Ch.  viii.]  Prose.  261 

and  suspense ;  style  and  skill  in  developing  a  story  were  considered 
quite  an  indifferent  matter. 

Among  the  translators  noble  ladies  took  the  lead,  such  as  Elisa- 
beth of  Lorraine,  Countess  of  Nassau-Saarbriicken, 
and  Eleanor  of  Scotland,  wife  of  Duke  Sigismund  of 
Austria.     The  former  translated  '  Lother  and  Mailer,'  the  latter 
'  Pontus  and  Sidonia.'     And  the  other  translators  whom  we  know 
by   name,    the   two    doctors,    Johannes    Hartlieb    and    Heinrich 
Steinhowel,  the  town-clerk,  Nicholas  von  Wyle,  the  parish-priest, 
Antonius  von  Pforr,  the  Bernese  statesman,  Thtiring  von  Ringol- 
tingen,  all  worked,  as  we  have  evidence  to  show,  on  commission 
from  noble  patrons.     Wilhelm  Ziely,  also  a  Bernese  statesman, 
forms  the  only  exception  to  this  rule.     It  was  in  the  Rhine-pro-^ 
vinces  and  the  neighbouring  country — in  the  same  district  where 
Hartmann  von  Aue  had  introduced  the  Arthur-romance,  and  where 
the  chivalrous   epic   had    struck  deepest  roots — that   the   prose-  < 
romance  was  first  cultivated.     In  form  these  prose-romances  are 
far  inferior  to  the  classic  masterpieces  of  Middle  High-German 
poetry,  but  they  will  bear  comparison  with  those  great  works  in 
the  lofty  spirit  of  chivalry  which  animates  them. 

By  the  side  of  these  noble  works,  derived  from  foreign  sources,  it 
is  somewhat  humiliating  to  consider  Germany's  special  contribution 
to  the  prose  tales  of  the  period  preceding  the  Reformation,  namely 
the  stories  centreing  round  the  character  of  Till  Eulenspiegel. 
These  stories  arose  in  the  lowlands  of  North  Germany,  were 
favourably  received  in  South  Germany,  and  succeeded  in  effecting 
an  entrance  into  the  literatures  of  Holland,  France,  stories  of 
England,  Denmark,  and  Poland.  Eulenspiegel  has  Till  Eulen- 
become  as  celebrated  a  character  as  Reynard  the  »PieseL 
Fox;  and  while  the  French  word  'renard/  as  we  have  already 
noticed,  owed  its  origin  to  the  German  'Reinhard,'  the  German 
'Eulenspiegel'  gave  birth  to  the  idea  and  the  word  of  espiegle.  It  is 
probable  that  a  man  of  the  name  of  Eulenspiegel  did  really  live  in 
the  fourteenth  century,  and  that  he  was  born  in  Kneitlingen  near 
Brunswick,  and  was  buried  in  Molln,  as  is  told  in  the  history  of 
his  life,  which  was  not  written  down  till  the  year  1483,  and  was 
printed  about  1500.  But  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  decide  which 


262  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [ch.  vin. 

.  of  the  pranks  attributed  to  him  are  really  his  own,  and  which  are 
only  put  down  to  his  name.  He  has  become  the  centre  for  all 
those  stories  in  which  a  man  annoys  his  fellow-men  without  the 
slightest  reason,  but  from  mere  delight  in  mischief.  The  stories  of 
^Till  Eulenspiegel  hold  the  same  place  among  the  romances  of  the 
fifteenth  century  that  the  Carnival-play  does  among  the  dramas. 
But  while  the  civic  Carnival -plays  turned  the  peasants  to  ridicule, 
Eulenspiegel  shows  us,  on  the  contrary,  how  a  peasant  might  re- 
venge himself  on  the  town-people.  Till  Eulenspiegel  is  a  vagabond 
of  peasant  origin,  who  hires  himself  out  to  artisans  and  does  them 
harm  by  literally  carrying  out,  as  rustics  might  do,  commands  which 
have  been  figuratively  expressed.  For  instance,  a  shoemaker  gives 
him  the  following  instructions  for  cutting  up  the  leather  :  'Cut  both 
small  and  large,  as  the  shepherd's  flock  which  he  drives  out  of  the 
village;'  whereupon  Eulenspiegel  cuts  up  the  leather  into  pigs,  oxen, 
calves,  and  sheep.  He  does  not  confine  his  activity  to  artisans, 
but  also  plays  pranks  on  princes  and  noblemen,  clergy  and  scho- 
lars, and  on  all  occasions  indecency  is  his  best  weapon.  The 
character  of  Eulenspiegel  is  an  imperishable  monument  to  that 
rustic  cunning  which  cheats  with  all  the  appearance  of  simplicity, 
and  glories  in  the  power  of  rudeness. 

All  the  works  which  we  have  named,  romances  and  collections 
of  farcical  tales,  cover  but  a  small  area  of  the  prose- 
branches  of  hterature  of  the  fifteenth  century.     The  literature  of 
prose  litera-  sermons   and   treatises,  of  biblical   translations  and 

ture  in  the    commentaries,  could  boast  of  a  lono;  pedigree.     Since 
15th  century.   ,  '  ,       ,. 

the  days  of  Charlemagne  the   line  had  never  been 

quite  broken,  and  the  nearer  we  approach  to  the  Reformation  the 
more  we  find  original  work  in  these  branches  taking  the  place  of 
mere  translations  from  the  Latin.  German  juristic  prose-writing 
dates  from  the  thirteenth  century,  scientific  prose-works  from  the 
fourteenth,  while  books  on  medicine  and  pharmacy  go 
back  still  further.  German  prose-history  began  in  the 
thirteenth  century  with  the  Saxon  Universal  Chronicle,  and  spread 
in  the  course  of  the  fourteenth  century  to  South  Germany.  In 
1390  Jacob  Twinger,  of  Konigshofen  near  Strassburg,  published 
the  first  edition  of  his  important  historical  work,  a  chronicle  of  the 


Ch.  viii.]  Prose.  263 

chief  events  of  his  time.  In  1433  Eberhard  Windeck,  of  Mainz, 
brought  out  his  history  of  the  Emperor  Siegmund.  All  the  great 
towns,  Liibeck,  Magdeburg,  Breslau,  Niirnberg,  Augs-  Town- 
burg,  Basle,  and  Berne,  had  each  their  own  chronicle  chronicles, 
in  German.  If  German  versions  were  made  of  Latin  historical 
works,  it  was  only  for  the  purpose  '  of  amusing  and  entertaining 
the  laity;'  the  style  of  historical  narrative  in  these  translations 
became  more  graphic  and  full  of  detail ;  stories  and  legends  were 
inserted,  and  in  fact  we  can  trace  everywhere  the  strong  love  of 
stories  characteristic  of  this  age,  and  the  desire  to  give  to  history 
the  form  and  completeness  of  the  tale.  Even  the  preacher  had 

Ions:  since  availed  himself  of  the  tale  to  illustrate  moral 

Sermons, 
truths  in  his  sermons;    this   element,  together  with 

satire  on  public  affairs  and  moral  interpretations  of  various  events 
of  life,  soon  rendered  the  pulpit  just  as  much  a  source  of  enter- 
tainment as  the  religious  stage  had  long  ago  become. 

The  general  predilection  for  the  drama  and  for  dramatic  forms    . 
of  writing  is  also  visible  in  the  prose-works  of  this  The  ,  Acker- 
period.     In  the  so-called  '  Ackermann  aus  Bohmen/     mann  aus 
a  widower  is  made  to  express  his  feelings  at  the  loss     Bonmen-' 
of  his  wife  in  a  prose-dialogue  between  himself  and  death,  which 
attains  a  most  dramatic  ending  in  the  final  appeal  of  both  to  God 
fat  His  judgment  on  the  matter.      This  work  was  written  by 
Johannes  Ackermann  of  Saaz  in  Bohemia,  in  1399,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  death  of  his  wife  Margarethe.     Though  we  cannot 
give  it  unqualified  praise,  yet  it  must  be  reckoned  as  one  of  the 
most  original  productions  of  mediaeval  literature  ;  the  author  shows 
wide  culture  and  his  prose  is  thoroughly  artistic. 

Unfortunately  there  was  no  further  development  of  the  artistic 
prose-dialogue   during  the  fifteenth  century.     Niclas  ,  The  prose- 
von  Wyle  translated  some  dialogues  of  Petrarch  and      dialogue, 
of  the  Swiss  Renaissance-scholar  Felix  Hemmerlin  ;    the  flippant 
satirist  Lucian  found  many  imitators,  and  Ulrich  von  Hutten  trans-^ 
lated  his  dialogues  into  German.     But  it  was  the  anonymous  pam- 
phlet-literature of  the  Reformation  which  really  raised  the  German 
prose-dialogue  to  the  rank  of  a  recognised  branch  of  literature.. 
The  introduction  of  the  prose-dialogue  into  literature  was  due  to 


264  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vm. 

.the  revival  of  classical  learning,  which  also  exercised  a  beneficial 
influence  on  the  whole  of  German  prose-writing,  and  introduced 
a  more  refined  idea  of  life  and  of  the  arts. 

The  more  serious  branches  of  the  new  Renaissance  literature 
Niclas  von  found  favour  in  the  same  select  circles  which  had 
Wyle.  patronised  the  prose-romance.  Niclas  von  Wyle  made 
-.translations  from  the  classical  authors,  and  from  Petrarch  and 
Poggio;  he  also  translated  an  epistle  of  JSneas  Sylvius  on  the  use  of 
classical  studies.  In  1474  he  wrote  a  work  in  praise  of  women,  in 
which  he  enumerated  all  the  blessings  which  the  human  race  had 
received  through  them — a  marked  contrast  to  the  satire  on  women 
which  formed  so  favourite  a  feature  of  the  popular  literature  of  the 
period.  Wyle's  noble  patrons  were  most  ready  to  do  all  they 
could  to  advance  learning,  and  two  new  universities,  Freiburg  and 
Tubingen,  bore  witness  to  their  generosity  in  this  respect.  The 
women  belonging  to  this  educated  circle  also  took  an  interest  in 
the  movement ;  chief  among  them  was  the  '  Lady  of  Austria,'  as 
she  was  called  in  popular  songs,  Mathilda  of  Wittelsbach,  sister 
of  Frederick  the  Victorious,  who  married  first  Count  Ludwig  of 
Wiirtemberg,  and  secondly  the  Archduke  Albert  VI,  ruler  of  the 
Austrian  possessions  on  the  Rhine;  Mathilda  had  friendly  and 
sympathetic  relations  with  all  the  representatives  of  refined  culture 
in  Swabia  and  Bavaria.  In  the  Palatinate  itself  the  University  and 
'Court  of  Heidelberg  were  the  head-quarters  of  the  New  Learning, 
or,  as  it  is  also  called,  Humanism ;  and  till  just  before  the  Refor- 
mation, Greek,  Roman,  and  Renaissance  works  were  there  trans- 
lated into  German  and  dedicated  mostly  to  the  young  Counts 
Palatine. 

THE  NEW  LEARNING,  OR  HUMANISM. 

In  1348,  as  we  have  already  said,  the  first  German  University 

First        was  f°unckd  at  Prague  by  the  Emperor  Charles  IV. 

German  Uni-  Both  this  university  and  the  others  which  soon  fol- 

versities,     lowed  it— Vienna  in  1365,  Heidelberg  in  1386,  Co- 

ury'  logne  in  1388,  Erfurt  in  1392— were  all  foundations 

which  owed  their  origin  to  clerical  policy,  or  to  princely  or  muni- 


Ch.  viii.]        The  New  Learning,  or  Humanism.  265 

cipal  ambition ;  they  were  imitations  of  the  Paris  University,  from 
which  most  of  them  at  first  recruited  their  forces,  and  were  not 
specially  centres  for  the  study  of  classical  literature,  and  the  de- 
velopment of  a  pure  Latin  style.  Their  merit  lay  rather  in  thec 
transmission  of  traditional  learning  than  in  the  advancement  of 
knowledge  generally.  The  subtleties  of  logic  and  the  conflicts  of 
philosophical  parties  were  a  good  school  for  abstract  thought,  and 
for  that  art  of  disputation  and  rhetoric  which  shone  forth  so 
gloriously  at  the  great  Church  Councils  of  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries.  A  Hessian,  Heinrich  von  Langenstein,  when 
still  a  member  of  the  University  of  Paris,  sketched  the  main 
features  of  that  Church-policy  which  resulted  in  the  Councils, 
and  of  which  Johannes  Gerson  was  later  on  the  most  distinguished 
exponent.  Heinrich  von  Langenstein  attacked  astrological  super- 
stition, and  at  Vienna,  which  was  the  scene  of  his  labours  from 
the  year  1383,  he  paved  the  way  for  the  great  astronomers  Peuer-^ 
bach  and  Regiomontanus.  A  Frenchman  in  later  times  asserts 
that  Heinrich  transported  the  science  of  mathematics  from  Paris 
to  Vienna,  and  thus  was  the  means  of  spreading  it  throughout 
Germany,  where  it  gave  birth  to  the  three  inventions  of  gun- 
powder, printing,  and  the  art  of  navigation,  which  led  to  the  great 
geographical  discoveries  of  the  fifteenth  century.  But  we  have 
as  yet  hardly  any  real  evidence  of  a  connection  between  the 
learning  of  the  universities  and  the  progress  of  invention. 

Gutenberg  arrived  at  the  discovery  of  printing  without  any  aid 
from  science,  simply  through  observations  made  in  con-  invention  of 
nection  with  the  goldsmith's  art.     Johannes  Miiller  of     printing, 
Konigsberg  in  Franconia,  surnamed  Regiomontanus,    cir< 
was,  it  is  true,  a  scholar  and  also  a  mechanic.     He  considerably 
advanced  the  studies  of  mathematics  and  astronomy ;    Begiomon- 
he  built  the  first  observatory  in  Nurnberg,  established        tanus. 
a  printing-press,  and  published  the  first  German  Calendar,  and 
was  the  director  of  a  workshop  for  making  astronomical  instru- 
ments, compasses,  and  globes.     Many  legends  are  told  of  him 
which  prove  how  much  people  in  these  times  were  still  inclined  to 
ascribe  to  the  investigator  of  nature  a  supernatural  power  over 
nature  itself. 


266  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vin. 

In   Regiomontanus   we    have   an   instance   of    great   scientific 
achievements  going  hand  in  hand  with  classical  learning.     Georg 

.  Peuerbach,  his   teacher,  was   the  first  man  to  give 
Peuerbach> 

lectures  on  classical  studies  in  Germany  (1454);  he 

^expounded  Virgil,  Juvenal,  and  Horace  at  the  University  of  Vienna, 
and  in  the  year  1461  Regiomontanus  joined  him  in  his  labours. 
->  ^3neas  ^Eneas  Sylvius  of  Siena,  who  was  secretary  in  the 
Sylvius.  Imperial  Chancery  from  1443  to  J455>  did  his  utmost 
to  bring  classical  studies  into  favour  with  the  Emperor,  the 
Austrian  princes,  and  his  colleagues. 

^  The  principles  advocated  by  JGneas  with  regard  to  the  training 
of  princes  were  realised  to  a  certain  extent  in  the  education  of 
Maximilian  I  ;  and  this  emperor  became,  not  only  the  last  of  the 
knights,  but  also  a  Maecenas  after  the  Italian  model,  the  patron 
of  learned  men,  authors  and  artists,  and  a  promoter  of  classical 
studies  in  particular. 

The  earlier  Universities  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Leipzig  (1409), 

Rostock  (1419),  Greifswald  (1456),  were  still  founded  after  the 

old  model  ;  but  the  founders  of  Freiburg  (1457),  Basle 

Advance  of  (I46O),  Ingoldstadt  (1472),   and   Tubingen   (1477), 

>     classical  .  .  . 

studies       seem  to  have  been  actuated  by  an  interest  in  classical 


studies 

studies;  and  at  Wittenberg  (1502),  and  Frankfurt  on 

the  Oder  (1506),  foundations  in  which  Kursachsen  and  Branden- 
burg emulated  each  other,  the  promotion  of  classical  studies 
seems  to  have  been  a  matter  of  course.  Soon  after  Peuerbach 
had  begun  his  lectures  on  the  classics  in  Vienna,  wandering 
classical  scholars,  'Poetae'as  they  were  called,  began  to  appear 
at  other  Universities,  where  they  dared  to  attack  the  traditional 
learning  of  the  Middle  Ages.  These  scholars  were  all  eclipsed 
by  the  wandering  preacher  of  Humanism,  Konrad  Celtis,  the 
Konrad  son  °f  a  peasant  at  Wipfeld  in  Franconia,  who  began 
Celtis,  1450-  his  career  of  agitation  in  favour  of  classical  studies 
1508.  jn  j^g,^  at  the  age  of  twenty-six.  Celtis  gave  lectures 
at  various  Universities,  founded  literary  societies  and  wrote  a  de- 
scription of  his  travels  and  love-adventures  in  elegiacs,  after  the 
model  of  Ovid's  '  Amores.'  He  subsided  at  length  into  a  Pro- 
fessor of  Rhetoric  and  Poetry,  first  at  Ingolstadt  from  1492 


Ch.  viii.]       The  New  Learning^  or  Humanism.  267 

to  1497,  then  at  Vienna,  where  he  continued  till  his  death  in 
1508. 

But  the  New  Learning  in  Germany  was  not  destined  to  follow 
in  the  paths  which  Celtis  wished  to  prescribe  to  it,  after  the  ex- 
ample  of  the   Italians.     The   aim  of  the  great   majority  of  the 
German  Humanists  was  not  a  secular-aesthetic  culture  with  a  colour- 
ing of  paganism,  but  a  thorough,  systematic  education  with  constant  / 
reference  to  religious  matters.     Animated  by  this  idea,  we  find,  as  " 
early  as  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century,  the  '  Brotherhood  of  the 
Common  Life,'  led  by  Gerhard  Groote,  taking  the 
reform  of  the  German  system  of  education  into  their      Qroote's 
own  hands,  and  founding  a  school  at  Deventer,  which  educational  </. 
became  more  influential  than  many  universities.    They    reforms  in 
insisted  that  the  laity  should  read  the  Bible  in  the 
mother-tongue,  and  in  all  learning  they  only  prized  that  which  C 
advanced  the  sanctification  of  life.     At  the  same  time  they  did 
not  hold  aloof  from  those  new  studies  which  came   from  Italy, 
but  insisted  on  the  mastery  of  classical  Latin  and  the  study  of 
Greek.     From  their  school  Westphalia  and  the  Upper  Rhine  drew 
their  first  teachers  of  the  New  Learning.     Their  school  produced 
the  witty  philologist   Erasmus,  a  man  who  could  fully  value  a 

refined  secular  life.     He  sought  by  numerous  writings 

,  ,  .  e          ,  ,      Erasmus, 

to  promote  the  general  acquirement  of  an  elegant  and 

correct  Latin  style  such  as  he  himself  wrote,  but  still  he  looked 
upon  the  application  of  the  philological  method  to  the  writings 
of  the  New  Testament  as  his  greatest  and  noblest  task. 

The  philological  method  required  that  students  should  go  back 
to  the  original  sources  of  tradition  and  information.  By  seeking 
the  best  authorities  and  abandoning  the  bad  ones,  Tendency  to 
men  were  learning  to  set  themselves  free  from  autho-  independent 
rities  altogether.  Peuerbach  and  Regiomontanus,  in  views, 
penetrating  to  the  original  text  of  Ptolemy  and  communicating 
his  knowledge  to  their  contemporaries,  were  preparing  the  way  for^ 
the  work  of  Copernicus.  The  physicians,  by  returning  to  Hippo- 
crates, were  preparing  the  way  for  the  anatomical  discoveries  of 
Vesalius.  The  way  to  Nature  lay  through  the  study  of  the  Greek 
writers.  At  first  men  saw  only  what  had  been  seen  before  by  the 


268  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vin. 

ancients,  but  soon  they  learnt  to  look  for  themselves.  Juristic 
science  began  to  pass  over  the  mediaeval  teachers  and  to  keep  to 
the  Corpus  Juris.  Theology  began  to  disregard  the  scholastic 
writers  and  the  Fathers  and  to  keep  to  the  Bible.  It  is  true, 
theological  study  did  not  at  this  time  go  further  than  this;  it 
did  not  exercise  its  criticism  on  the  Word  of  God  itself,  but  it 
refused  to  be  satisfied  with  the  Latin  translation,  which  had  been 
recognised  throughout  the  Middle  Ages.  In  the  New  Testament 
men  returned  to  the  Greek  text,  in  the  Old  to  the  Hebrew,  and 
in  pointing  out  numerous  mistakes  in  that  version  of  the  Bible 
which  had  been  exclusively  used  and  authorized  by  the  Church, 
the  new  theologians  were  putting  out  a  hand  against  the  power 
of  the  Church  itself.  This  step  was  taken  by  Erasmus  in  one 
country,  by  Reuchlin  in  another,  by  neither  of  them  with  any  de- 
structive intentions,  but  simply  in  the  honest  search  after  truth. 
Still,  it  was  from  the  text  as  supplied  by  Erasmus  that  Luther 
made  his  translation  of  the  New  Testament. 

If  on  the  one  hand  the  religious  humanists  turned  their  attention 
to  artistic  literature,  on  the  other  hand  they  were  also 
m  e.        much   influenced    by   the    popular    comic   writings. 
y  influenced    Erasmus'   ironical    '  Encomium   Moriae '  ('  Praise  of 
by  the       Folly ')  is  written  in  imitation  of  Brand's  '  Ship  of 
Fools.'     Heinrich   Bebel,  a   Professor  at  Tubingen, 
the  son  of  a  Swabian  peasant,  made  a  Latin  version 
of  a  well-known  popular  song  ('  Ich  stund  an  einem  Morgen ') ; 
he  also  made  a  collection  of  proverbs  and  comic  anecdotes,  and 
in   his  'Triumphus  Veneris'  he   has   given  us   a  satire   on   the 
influence  of  love  on  all  classes,  in  the  style  which  was  so  popular 
in  the  Carnival  Plays.   These  satirists  always  directed  their  sharpest 
weapons  against  priests  and  monks ;  anti-clerical  satire  reached  its 
climax  in  the  so-called  'Epistolae  obscurorum  virorum,'  a  work  of 
great  historical  importance,  which  proceeded  from  the  University 
vof  Erfurt,  and  produced  an  effect  through  all  Europe,  for  it  was 
the  hardest  blow  dealt  at  the  clergy  before  the  Reformation. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  a  band  of  young 
scholars  had  come  together  in  the  University  of  Erfurt;  this 
circle  produced  many  renowned  Latin  poets,  such  as  the  witty 


ch.  viii.]       The  New  Learning,  or  Humanism.  369 

Crotus  Rubianus,  chief  writer  of  the  '  Epistolae  obscurorum  vi- 
rorum,'  the  worthy  Eobanus  Hessus,  who  afterwards    Tlie  Erfurt 
translated  the  Iliad  and  the  Psalms  into  Latin,  the      circle  of 
epigrammatist  Euricius  Cordus,  whom  Lessing   es-      writers, 
teemed  highly,  and  from  whom  he  gained  many  ideas  for  his  epi- 
grammatic poems  ;  Ulrich  von  Hutten  also  for  a  time  formed  one 
of  this  band.     These  young  scholars  all  honoured  as  their  leader, 
Konrad  Mutianus  Rufus,  Canon  of  Gotha,  a   gifted   man,  whoT 
despised  the  honours  of  literary  renown  and  found  satisfaction 
in   personally  influencing   a   few.     Mutianus  implanted  his  own 
bitterness  against  the  Roman  Church  in  the  minds  of  the  talented 
youths  who  surrounded  him.     Classical  studies  freed  men  from 
prejudices  and  inclined  them  to   tolerance  in  an  intolerant  age. 
Mutianus  preferred  certain  ancient  philosophers  to  many  Chris- 
tian theologians,  and  took  a  pleasure  in  the  splendid  sayings  of 
the  Koran.     Reuchlin's  Hebrew  studies  had  enabled  him  to  enter 
into  the  Jewish  spirit,  and  he  believed  that  valuable  secrets  lay 
concealed  in  the  Rabbinical  writings.   When,  therefore,  the  baptized 
Jew  Pfefferkorn  advocated  the  burning  of  all  Jewish  books  with~~ 
the  exception  of  the  Old  Testament,  Reuchlin  undertook  their 
defence  (1510),  and  became  involved  in  a  controversy  with  the 
Cologne  theologians.     In  this  quarrel  all  the   German  disciples 
of  the  New  Learning  were  on  Reuchlin's  side,  and  the  Erfurt 
poets,  the  'Order  of  Mutianus'  as  they  called  themselves,  turned 
his  enemies  to  ridicule  in  the  so-called  '  Epistles  of 
obscure  men,'  an  imaginary  correspondence  between    « Epistolae 
a  number  of  clergy,  whose  characters  are  revealed  obscurorum 
by  their  letters.     A  certain  dramatic  element  is  again     virorum ' 
apparent  in  this  work,  and  the  letters  show  a  power 
of  character-drawing  superior  to  anything  ever   at- 
tained  by  the  mediaeval   drama.     The  characters  do  not   stand 
before  the  public  and  simply  enumerate  their  faults,  as  in   the 
Carnival-plays,  but  are  made  to  reveal  their  secrets  to  each  other 
in  confidence,  and  are  supposed  to  be  overheard  in  so  doing. 
The  semblance  of  probability  is  strictly  preserved;    the  charac- 
teristic features  are  piled  up  for  caricature,  but  every  feature  is 
true.     The  delightfully  comic  dog-Latin,  the  ignorance  of  classical 


270  The  Close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  [Ch.  vni. 

literature,  the  foolish  subjects  of  controversy,  the  serious  arguing 
about  mere  nothings,  the  reports  of  quarrels  with  the  poets  and 
of  bad  treatment  sustained  at  their  hands,  the  naive  confessions 
of  convivial  pleasures  and  love-affairs  are  all  based  on  reality. 
The  unity  of  the  whole  is  cleverly  secured  by  the  device  of  a 
chief  addressee  in  Cologne,  and  by  constant  reference  to  the 
course  of  the  Reuchlin  controversy. 

The  merit  of  having  originated  the  idea  of  these  letters  belongs 

._  to  Crotus  Rubianus,  who    was   also   the  chief  con- 

Crotus 

Bubianus     tributor  to  the  first  part,  which  appeared  in  1515.    In 
originated    the  second  volume  (1517),  Ulrich  von  Hutten  took 
5m'       a  leading  part,  and  not  altogether  to  the  advantage 
of  the  work,  for  he  allows  his  lofty  seriousness,  his  pathos,  and 
even  his  better  Latin  occasionally  to  break  through,  and  some- 
times goes  beyond  the  bounds  of  probability. 

This  was  the  most  brilliant  period  in  the  career  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Erfurt,  but  it  was  unfortunately  of  short  duration.  In 
the  year  1519  eight  classical  professorships  were  established  there. 
Eobanus  Hessus  was  the  most  favourite  teacher,  Erasmus  the  ideal 
of  learning  to  which  they  all  aspired.  But  the  University  soon 
suffered  from  the  storms  of  the  Reformation. 

In  the  year  1501  Martin  Luther  began  to  study  theology  at 

Martin       tn's  ver^  University;   he  was  not  a  member  of  the 

Luther  at    Erfurt  circle  of  poets,  though  acquainted  with  Crotus 

Erfurt,  1501-  Rubianus.     He  afterwards  entered  the  Augustinian 

monastery  there,  but  was  summoned  in  1508  to  the 

University  of  Wittenberg,  which  he  was  destined  to  make,  during 

his  life-time,  the  intellectual  centre  of  Germany. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE  REFORMATION  AND  THE  RENAISSANCE. 

THE  epoch  of  the  mediaeval  Renaissance  had  its  movement  of 
Church  Reform,  which  proceeded  in  the  tenth  century  from  the 
Burgundian  monastery  of  Cluny,  and  in  the  eleventh  century  even 
triumphed  over  the  Papacy.  Similarly,  the  epoch  of  the  modern 
Renaissance  was  at  the  same  time  the  epoch  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation,  the  epoch  which  produced  Martin  Luther.  Germany, 
which  has  so  often  been  led  by  foreign  influences,  then  for  the  first 
time  took  upon  herself,  for  a  short  period,  the  intellectual  leader- 
ship of  Europe. 

The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance  were  kindred  movements, 
but  their  interests  were  not  identical.  The  deeply  exciting  ques- 
tions raised  by  the  Reformation  interrupted  that  promising 

intellectual  movement  which   had  been  called  forth 

The 
by  the  revival  of  classical  learning.     The  jesting  tone  nenai8sance 

of  the  '  Epistolae  obscurorum  virorum '  soon  changed   interrupted 
into  one  of  bitter  earnestness ;  the  literary  war  gave       by  the 
place  to  a  real  struggle  of  reckless  violence.     In  Ger-          . 
man  literature  as  in  German  history  the  years  from 
1517  to    1530   are   entirely  absorbed  by  the   Reformation;   this 
movement  enlisted   all  powers  in   its   service ;    the  Muses  were 
silenced,  and  the  voice  of  Theology  alone  was  heard.     It  was  not 
till  the  third  and  fourth  decades  of  the  century  that  sesthetic  interests 
ventured  again  to  assert  themselves ;  after  the  religious         The 
peace  of  1555,  intellectual  life  began  once  more  to     Beiigious 
spring  up  vigorously  in   all   directions.     After  that,      peace  of 
though  Protestant  theologians  might  tear  each  other  to 
pieces,  though  the  Jesuits  might  advance  boldly,  organizing  a  counter- 


272  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  ix. 

reformation,  still,  side  by  side  with  religious  questions,  other  human 
interests  again   began  to  obtain  a  hearing.      From 
revival  of    about  the  year  1600  German  literature  began  notice- 
literature     ably  to  increase  in  merit  and  influence.     The  Drama 
about  i  oo.  canle  more   ancj   more  decidedly  to  the  front,  and 
dramatic  art  was  greatly  improved.     It  is  true  that  we  do  not  meet 
with  any  authors  of  first-class  powers  among  the  writers  of  Latin 
and  German  plays  of  this  period,  but  such  as  they  were  they 
seemed   specially  destined    to   prepare   the  way  for   some   great 
master,  as  whose  predecessors  they  would  have  been  named  with 
honour.     The  drama  in  Germany  at  this  period  had  reached  the 
,  same  stage  as  it  had  in  England  before  the  appear- 
by  the       ance  of  Shakspeare,  and   there  seemed    no  reason 
ThirtyYears*  why  Germany  should  not  also  have  produced  its  great 
**'         '    dramatist.     But  all  the  hopes  and  promises  of  Ger- 
man literature  were  shattered  by  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  which  proved 
most  fatal  for  some  time  to  all  intellectual  progress  in  Germany. 


MARTIN  LUTHER. 

It  was  Martin  Luther  who  created  the  Reformation  in  Germany; 

his  mind  and  his  will  determined  the  character  of  the 

determined   wno'e  movement.     The  numerous  remarkable  men 

the  Befor-    whom  the  New  Learning  had  formed,  and  who  after- 

mation  in    wards  entered  the  service  of  the  Reformation,  had 

either  to  attach  themselves  to  Luther  or  to  sink  into 

insignificance  beside   him.     Even  Zwingli  could  only  succeed  in 

gaining  a  local  influence ;  in  his  mind  the  New  Learning  and  the 

Reformation   were    not   opposing   interests,   and   he 

hoped   to   meet  in   heaven   Socrates,  Aristides,   the 

Scipios,  and  other  good  heathens.     He  displayed  all  the  practical 

common-sense  of  the  Swiss ;  he  was  first  a  purifier  of  morals,  and 

afterwards  a  Reformer.     His  cheerful  temperament  knew  nothing 

of  inward  struggles  such  as  those  through  which  Luther  gained 

the  power  of  confronting  the  Pope  and  the  Old  Church, 

and  carrying  the  nation  with  him.     Luther,  too,  had 

imbibed  elements  of  humanistic  culture,  but  he  was  not  a  true 


ch.  ix.]  Martin  Luther.  273 

Humanist.  He  could  esteem  a  few  didactic  productions  of  classical 
poetry  and  science,  but  the  beauty  of  the  classical  authors  left  no 
impression  on  him.  In  the  Scriptures  he  found  both  beauty  and 
wisdom,  and  that  sufficed  him.  It  was  for  the  sake  of  the  Bible 
that  he  became  a  philologist.  Erasmus  and  Reuchlin  led  him  to 
study  the  Scriptures  in  their  original  form,  and  by  his  translation  he 
made  them  accessible  to  the  German  people. 

Before  Luther,  no  German  had,  so  far  as  we  know,  been  ener- 
getic enough  to  grapple  with  the  whole  of  the  Scriptures.     No  one 

had  followed  the  example  of  the  Goth  Ulfilas.    Under 

/-.i      i  i     •  ».«**«>   M      Translations 

Charlemagne    a    translation    of  the   Gospel    of   St.    Ofporti0ns 

Matthew  was  the  only  work  done  in  this  direction,  of  the  Bible 
The  ninth  century  was  content  with  extracts  and  before 
metrical  paraphrases ;  the  tenth  and  eleventh  demanded 
German  texts  with  commentaries,  such  as  Notker's  Psalms  and 
Williram's  Song  of  Solomon.  From  the  twelfth  century  we  possess 
fragments  of  the  Gospels  in  German;  and  in  the  fourteenth  and 
fifteenth  centuries,  notwithstanding  the  papal  interdiction  of  the 
Bible,  these  translations  of  single  portions  continued  to  increase, 
and  gradually  embraced  the  whole  of  the  Scriptures.  The  Em- 
peror Wenceslaus  ordered  a  splendid  copy  of  the  whole  Bible, 
decorated  with  many  pictures,  to  be  made  from  these  various 
translations.  The  German  Bible  was  first  printed  in  1466,  and 
before  the  year  1522  it  had  been  printed  fifteen  times.  But 
these  editions  all  followed  one  and  the  same  translation,  the 
different  parts  of  which  were  very  unequal  in  merit.  They 
were  of  little  help  to  Luther  in  his  work ;  he  not  only  had  to 
correct  mistakes  but  to  substitute  a  clear,  graphic,  thoroughly 
German  prose  for  the  old  text,  which  was  uncouth  and  often 
incomprehensible,  and  which  slavishly  followed  the  original  without 
ever  attaining  to  its  excellence.  Luther  reproduced  Luther's 
the  Greek  and  Hebrew  Scriptures  in  a  German  form,  Bible, 
after  having  passed  them  through  the  medium  of  his  own  thought. 
In  the  Greek  portions  he  adhered  more  literally  to  the  original, 
in  the  Hebrew  he  allowed  himself  more  freedom,  as  the  genius 
of  the  two  languages  seemed  to  require;  in  the  former  he  was 
dependent  almost  entirely  on  his  own  knowledge,  in  the  latter 

T 


274  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.      [Ch.  IX. 

he  drew  more  help  from  his  friends.  He  had  the  highest  idea  of 
the  importance  of  the  task  he  had  undertaken.  He  knew  what  art, 
industry,  knowledge,  and  wisdom  were  required  to  make  a  good 
translator.  '  Interpretation,'  he  says,  '  is  not  an  art  for  everyone ; 
it  needs  a  very  pious,  faithful,  industrious,  diffident,  Christian, 
learned,  experienced,  and  practised  soul.' 

Luther  was  an  enthusiastic  lover  and  admirer  of  his  mother- 
tongue,  and  he  spared  no  trouble  to  make  his  translation  a 
monument  of  German  style.  He  devoted  himself  to  the  work 
with  the  greatest  seriousness  and  conscientiousness ;  he  tried  to 
absorb  the  spirit  of  the  original,  and  his  thorough  knowledge  of  the 

1  popular  tongue,  together  with  his  firm  resolution  not  to  write  for  the 
court  or  for  scholars,  but  for  the  people,  enabled  him  to  make  his 
Bible  a  true  people's  book. 

The  work  issued  from  the  Wartburg,  and  shed  fresh  glory  on 
that  place  of  ancient  literary  renown.     Luther  began  his  great 
work  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight,  when  he  was  at  the 
begins  his    height  of  his  popularity  after  the  diet  of  Worms.     In 
translation,   the  winter  of  1521,  about  Christmas  time,  he  formed 
the  resolution,  and,  though  it  sounds  almost  incredible, 
by  the  time  he  left  the  Wartburg,  on  the  third  of  March,  1522, 
he  had  already  finished  the  New  Testament.     In  two  months  the 
work  had  been  done  so  far  that  it  only  required  a  final  revision; 
Melanchthon  helped  in  this  revision,  and  in  the  month  of  September 
of  the  same  year  the  book  was  published.     While  the  New  Testa- 
ment was  being  printed,  Luther  set  to  work  upon  the  Old.     But  it 

.   .      was  not  till  the  year  1534  that  the  whole  Lutheran 
The  whole  * 

Bible        Bible  was  published  at  Wittenberg  by  Hans  Lufft,  in 
published,    six  parts.     In  the  year  1541  it  was  remodelled  with  the 
assistance  of  expert  collaborators,  and  this  version  after- 
wards received  a  few  amendments  in  the  editions  of  1543  and  1545. 
The  translation  of  the  Bible  is  Luther's  greatest  literary  achieve- 
Importance   ment>  an(^  at  tne  same  time  the  greatest  literary  event 
of  Luther's   of  the  sixteenth  century,  or  even  of  the  whole  period 
Bible.        from    I348  to   1648.     It  laid  the  foundation  of  a 
common  culture  for  all  ranks  of  society,  and  opened  a  whole 
intellectual   world   to   the    people.      Luther's   Bible   was   an   in- 


ch.  ix.]  Martin  Luther.  275 

exhaustible  source  of  grand  and  edifying  thoughts,  a  noble  and 
imperishable  literary  monument,  a  treasure  often  worshipped  to  the 
point  of  superstition  and  abuse. 

Luther's  Bible  permanently  fixed  the  literary  language  of  Ger- 

many.    Though  the  Reformation  increased  the  divi- 

It  made 
sions    within    the    German    nation,   though    it    rent 


asunder  Protestant  Germany  and  Catholic  Germany,   German  the 
yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  softened  the  contrast  between       literary 
South   Germany  and   North  Germany  by  definitely 
imposing  on  the  Low  Germans  a  High-German  literary  dialect.    In 
this   respect,   the   Reformation   laid   the   foundation   for   modern 
German  literature  and  for  that  unity  of  intellectual  life  which  we  at 
present  rejoice  in. 

Before  Luther's  time  the  High-German,  though  it  enjoyed  a 
certain  literary  pre-eminence,  had  not  been  able  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
literary  employment  of  other  dialects.  The  form  of  German  used 
in  the  Imperial  Chancery  was,  when  Luther  began  to  write,  the 
one  generally  recognised  as  a  pattern  to  which  others  should 
conform  ;  but  though  the  Chanceries  of  the  various  princes  and  of 
the  towns  as  a  rule  followed  this  form,  they  yet  continued  to  mix 
their  own  dialect  with  it. 

When  Luther  first  began  to  write  he  adopted  the  form  of 
German  employed  in  the  Saxon  Chancery,  and  adhered  pretty 
closely  to  the  Saxon  dialect.  Gradually,  however,  he  succeeded 
in  freeing  himself  from  it,  and  attained  to  a  form  of  language 
which  approaches  very  nearly  to  that  of  our  day,  though  not 
coinciding  with  it.  His  language  became  the  authority  for  all 
writers  and  printers.  In  Strassburg  we  find  that  books  written 
about  1515  had  already  to  be  modernised  in  1540.  The  first 
German  grammarians,  Fabian  Frangk  (1531),  Albert  Olinger(i573), 
and  Johannes  Clajus  (1578),  based  their  rules  consciously  or 
unconsciously  on  Luther's  form  of  speech.  And  the  ^-id 
Bible  was  and  continued  to  be  the  classic  in  this  influence  of 
language.  It  made  its  way  from  the  centre  of  Ger-  Luther's 
many  into  the  countries  round.  In  Switzerland  it  *  e" 
supplanted  the  '  Schwyzer  Diitsch,'  which  had  still  been  written  by 
Zwingli  ;  it  supplanted  Platt  Deutsch  in  the  North  and  the  Cologne 

T  a 


276  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  ix 

dialect  in  the  North-West.  Even  the  Catholics  participated  at  once 
in  the  advantages  afforded  by  Luther's  Bible.  '  They  steal  my 
language  from  me/  said  he ;  but  it  was  a  triumph  to  him  to  have 
taught  even  his  enemies  how  to  speak.  Hieronymus  Emser  cor- 
rected Luther's  New  Testament  according  to  the  Latin  text  recog- 
nised by  the  Catholic  Church  (1527);  Johann  Dietenberger  of 
Mainz  did  the  same  for  the  whole  Bible  (1534);  Johann  Eck's 
more  independent  translation,  made  in  1537,  could  not  assert  itself 
against  Luther's. 

But  Luther  not  only  gave  the  German  Bible  to  his  Church; 

he  not  only  made  the  Bible  the  centre  of  his  theology,  but  on  the 

basis  of  the  Bible  he  reorganized  the  sermon  and  the  Church-hymn. 

The  sermon  had  continued  to  flourish  since  the  time  of  Berthold 

The  Sermon  von  Regensburg  and  of  the  Mystics.    In  the  course  of 

as  Luther    the  fifteenth  century  it  received  an  extraordinary  addi- 

found  it.     tjon  of  material,  and  its  sphere  was  also  much  widened. 

The  best  German  preacher  of  this  century  was  Geiler  von  Kaisers- 

Geilervon  berg,  a  Swiss  by  birth,  but  brought  up  in  Alsace, 
Kaisersberg,  who  occupied  the  pulpit  of  Strassburg  Cathedral  from 

1445-1510.  1478  till  his  death  in  1510.  He  was  an  orator  of 
far-reaching  fame,  but  he  often  sacrificed  the  dignity  of  the  pulpit 
to  the  popular  desire  for  a  realistic  mode  of  expression,  and  would 
entertain  his  listeners  with  unsparing  satire  on  all  classes  of  society. 
Though  a  man  of  wider  culture  than  Berthold  von  Regensburg 
he  was  yet  inferior  to  him,  and  he  carried  Berthold's  mannerisms 
to  excess.  Like  Berthold  he  would  start  from  common  things, 
and  hang  religious  teaching  on  to  them.  In  one  of  his  sermons 
he  makes  Brand's  '  Ship  of  Fools '  the  foundation  of  his  discourse, 
and  takes  each  fool  singly  and  treats  each  bell  on  his  cap  as  a 
separate  sin.  Any  passing  interest  of  the  day,  and  even  the  most 
ordinary  occupations  of  everyday  life,  were  not  too  mean  to  serve  as 
material  for  his  allegorical  '  Moralisations.'  Other  preachers  of 
this  period  shared  Geiler's  faults,  and  added  others  to  them.  We 
notice  in  all  of  them  a  false  striving  after  realistic  effect,  much  ob- 
scure and  barren  learning,  and  a  mass  of  satire  and  anecdote,  of 
frivolous  and  comic  ingredients.  Such  was  the  condition  of  the 
sermon  at  the  time  when  Luther  appeared. 


ch.  ix.]  Martin  Luther.  277 

He  replaced  all  this  by  simple  teaching ;  he  did  not  condescend 
to  work  on  people's  feelings  and  imagination,  but  Luther's 
simply  appealed  to  their  reason  and  conscience.  Sermons. 
His  sermons  were  mostly  interpretations  of  the  Bible.  His  chief 
desire  was  to  bring  home  the  Scriptures  to  the  understanding  of 
every  one  of  his  hearers,  and  to  point  out  their  application  to  every- 
day life.  This  he  did  with  great  power  and  clearness,  and  in  his 
own  peculiarly  simple  and  attractive  style.  Ordinary  rhetoric 
played  but  a  small  part  in  his  sermons,  but  for  this  very  reason 
he  appealed  more  to  the  hearts  of  his  audience.  He  could  not, 
however,  hinder  the  sermon  from  sinking  again  in  later  times  into 
allegory  and  dogmatism,  into  pedantry  and  polemics. 

The  sacred  song  had  passed  through  all  the  various  phases  of 
German  literature.     Walther  von  der  Vogelweide  and  T^  church- 
many  other  Minnesingers  and   Mastersingers  wrote        hymn, 
rel'gious  poems.     But  it  was  not  every  religious  poem  that  could 
become  a  Church-hymn,  or  even  a  popular  religious  song.     The 
Mystics,  too,  had  cultivated  this  branch  of  literature,  but  it  was  not 
till  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  and  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury that  there  arose  religious  poets,  such  as  the  Monk  of  Salz- 
burg and  Heinrich  von  Laufenberg,  who  made  it  their  special  ob- 
ject to  increase  the  existing  store  of  Church-hymns,      Heinrich 
and  thus  to  break  the  power  of  the  secular '  Volkslied.'  von  Laufen- 
Heinrich  von  Laufenberg  in  particular  adhered,  as  far       h  e^^s 
as  possible,  to  the  spirit  of  the  '  Volkslied ; '  he  re-    circa  1400. 
tained   the   popular   melodies    and   sought   to  infuse   a   spiritual 
meaning  into  the  conventional  phrases,  but  he  really  accomplished 
the  very  opposite  of  what  he  had  intended.      His  elegant  and 
melodious  hymns  sounded  far  more  secular  than  religious ;  they 
shed  an  unholy  splendour  round  the  sublime  subjects  which  they 
sang  of,  and  drew  divine  things  down  to  an  earthly  level. 

Luther,  on  the  contrary,  revived  the  best  traditions  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church-hymn.     The  Psalms  had  been  the  basis      Luther's 
of  the  oldest  Church-songs,  and  Luther  in  his  hymns      hymns, 
returned  to  the  Psalms  and  the  Bible,  though  without  despising 
those  glorious  Latin  hymns  and  '  Sequences '  of  the  older  Church, 
which  were  really  developments  oi  the  Psalms.     He  also  remodelled 


278  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [ch.  IX. 

a  few  old  German  songs,  as,  for  instance,  the  Easter  song,  '  Christ 
is  arisen.'  Moreover,  he  embodied  his  hatred  for  the  Pope  in 
some  original  verses,  in  which  he  teaches  his  followers  to  pray 
thus : — 

'Erhalt  uns  Herr  bei  deinem  Wort, 
Und  steur  des  Papst's  und  Tiirken  Mord.' 

('Keep  us,  Lord,  in  Thy  Word, 
And  frustiate  the  murderous  designs  of  Pope  and  Turk.*) 

In  another  hymn,  the  first  which  he  wrote  for  congregational 
use,  he  adopted  the  tone  of  the  popular  roundelay,  and  sang  the 
redemption  of  man  in  the  dramatic  style  of  a  ballad;  but  the 
dignity  of  the  subject  does  not  suffer  in  the  least  from  his  treat- 
ment of  it. 

Most  of  Luther's  hymns  were  written  in  the  years  1523-24.  A 
manly  tone  rings  through  them  all,  such  as  was  yet  unknown  to 
German  lyric  poetry ;  and  they  are  all  written  in  that  impersonal 
spirit  which  is  a  characteristic  of  this  whole  epoch.  As  the  drama- 
tist vanishes  behind  his  creations,  and  speaks  through  the  souls  of 
strange  characters,  so  Luther  in  his  hymns  makes  his  own  personal 
feelings  retire  into  the  background,  and  expresses  in  powerful  lan- 
guage the  feelings  and  sentiments  shared  by  the  whole  congregation 
of  the  faithful. 

Some  of  Luther's  hymns  are  in  the  narrative  form,  others  again 
are  instructive,  while  some  are  in  the  form  of  a  confession  of  faith. 
The  character  of  the  Christian  knight,  which  we  have  met  with  in 
various  metamorphoses  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  is  the  true 
ideal  of  the  age  of  the  Reformation,  and  nowhere  is  this  ideal  more 
gloriously  represented  than  in  Luther's  famous  hymn  :  '  Ein'  feste 
Burg  ist  unser  Gott.'  This  hymn,  for  which  Luther  probably 
composed  the  melody  as  well  as  the  text,  is  based  on  the  46th 
Psalm,  and  was  written  in  October  1527,  at  the  approach  of  the 
plague.  It  is  the  reflection  of  a  moment  of  great  distress  and 
difficulty,  and  at  the  same  time  it  affords  us  a  true  picture  of 
Luther's  own  strong  and  noble  souU  But  of  his  inner  experiences 
he  only  reveals  to  us  those  which  everyone  might  feel  alike,  those 
which  in  their  moral  aspect  recur  in  all  ages,  whenever  a  brave 


Ch.  IX.]  Martin  Luther.  279 

man,  conscious  of  the  goodness  and  greatness  of  his  cause,  arms 
himself  against  the  attacks  of  the  world. 

It  is  in  his  hymns  that  Luther  shows  most  of  the  artist ;  but  he 

is  an  artist  also  in  his  pamphlets.     And  while  in  his 

„        ,  .     ..  .  .      ,  .        Means  of 

songs  he  suppresses  all  subjective  emotions,  in  his     agitation 

pamphlets  he  allows  them  free  course.    His  translation     employed 

of  the  Bible,  his  sermons,  his  hymns,  all  served  as    „  bf the 

3  Beformers. 

weapons  in   a  peaceful  agitation  for  the  Protestant 

cause.  But  side  by  side  with  these,  he  also  availed  himself,  from 
the  very  beginning  of  the  conflict,  of  all  the  stronger  means  of 
agitation,  which,  in  the  then  existing  state  of  German  culture, 
lay  at  his  command.  Those  who  could  not  read  might  have  their 
feelings  roused  by  woodcuts.  Luther  therefore  invited  Lucas 
Cranach  to  produce  '  The  Passional  of  Christ  and  Antichrist,'  in 
which  the  sufferings  of  Christ  were  contrasted  trait  by  trait  with 
the  pomp  and  luxury  of  the  Pope.  The  latest  news  might  be 
spread  through  printed  songs  or  prose-writings ;  thus  Luther  de- 
scribed the  burning  of  two  Evangelical  martyrs  at  Brussels  (1523) 
in  an  excellent  song,  and  also  published  many  accounts  of  impor- 
tant contemporary  events,  with  or  without  criticisms,  but  never 
without  a  decided  purpose.  Other  short  writings  might  also  be 
spread  by  the  aid  of  printing ;  thus  we  find  papal  letters  of  indul- 
gence among  the  earliest  productions  of  the  press,  and  Luther 
caused  his  own  celebrated  theses  against  indulgence  to  be  printed 
for  circulation.  Living  and  enkindling  speech  could  now  be  re- 
placed by  printed  words,  and  weapons  of  attack  and  defence  might 
by  this  means  be  put  in  the  hands  of  thousands ;  Luther  made 
extensive  use  of  the  polemical  pamphlet  and  accom-  Luther's 
plished  great  things  by  its  aid.  The  historian  of  pamphlets. 
German  literature  must  class  these  controversial  writings  with  the 
polemical  poetry  of  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide.  The  object  of 
attack  is  the  same  ;  the  effects  produced  and  the  rhetorical  weapons 
employed  are  in  both  cases  closely  allied,  and  only  the  literary  form 
is  slightly  different  in  each.  By  means  of  his  pamphlets  Luther 
spoke  to  thousands,  and  made  his  voice  resound  throughout 
Germany.  Most  of  them  show  a  certain  want  of  coherence  in  the 
development  of  thought,  consisting  as  they  do  of  a  series  of 


280  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [ch.  ix. 

numbered  assertions,  proved  one  after  the  other,  without  any 
attempt  to  gather  them  into  a  logical  whole.  Their  tone  varies 
greatly  according  to  the  different  audiences  whom  the  author 
is  addressing,  but  he  always  takes  care  that  his  meaning  shall 
be  clear  to  all.  He  is  less  successful  in  temperate  discussion 
than  in  passionate  attack ;  in  pamphlets  of  the  latter  character  he 
adopts  a  tone  of  unaffected  popularity,  using  all  those  arts  which 
he  scorned  to  employ  in  his  sermons,  in  such  a  way  as  often  to 
remind  us  of  Brother  Berthold  and  Geiler  von  Kaisersberg. 

Luther's  pamphlets  are  quite  as  popular  in  tone  as  the  writings 
of  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  and  some  of  the  characteristics 
which  we  have  noticed  in  Walther  nppear  still  more  marked  in 
Luther  nd  Luther,  such  as  natural  imagery,  pregnant  phrases, 
Walther  proverbial  expressions,  exaggerated  utterances  of 
von  der  anger  or  scorn  and  a  power  of  imaginative  and  vivid 
e>  representation  resulting  in  highly  dramatic  effects. 
Luther  is  very  fond  of  personification ;  he  speaks  of  Romish 
avarice,  for  instance,  as  the  worst  thief  and  robber,  to  be  handed 
over  to  the  punishment  of  thieves  and  robbers— hanging  or 
decapitation.  In  his  polemical  pamphlets  he  always  directly 
addresses  his  opponent,  running  him  down,  pouring  out  a  torrent 
of  abuse  against  him,  and  thus  involuntarily  drawing  a  grotesque 
caricature  of  the  man.  He  never  indulges  in  monologue,  but 
always  gives  us  a  portion  of  a  dialogue.  Luther's  whole  person- 
ality is  represented  in  his  pamphlets :  his  bursts  of  passionate 
violence,  his  strong  emotions,  his  fiery  activity,  his  bold  outspoken- 
ness, his  deep  humility  and  trust  in  God,  his  strong  self-reliance, 
arising  from  the  conviction  of  being  engaged  in  a  good  work,  and 
finally  his  boyish  high  spirits,  leading  him  to  make  fun  of  his 
opponents,  and  to  spare  kings  and  princes  as  little  as  his 
theological  colleagues.  He  himself  disapprovingly  compares  his 
style  to  a  restless  and  turbulent  fighter,  always  struggling  with 
terrific  monsters,  and  he  laments  the  want  in  himself  of  that  loving 
and  peaceful  spirit  which  he  admires  so  much  in  others.  But  he 
comforts  himself  with  the  assurance  that  the  Heavenly  Father  in 
His  great  household  must  need  different  kinds  of  servants,  the  hard 
one  for  hard  work,  a  common  hatcnet  for  common  logs. 


Ch.  ix.]  Martin  Luther.  281 

Neither  in  Germany,  nor  elsewhere,  has  there  ever  arisen  a  man 

who  was  able  to  appeal  with  such  power  to  the  whole 

Influence  of 
nation   as   Luther   did.     No   other  writer   has   ever    Luther  on 

gained  such  vast  and  immediate  influence  through  his  the  inteilec- 
writings :  no  other  professor  has  ever  afforded  such    tual  life  of 

Germany. 

an  emphatic  contradiction  of  the  charge  of  pedantic 
conceit.  In  spite  of  his  school  and  university  training,  in  spite 
of  the  monastery  and  the  professorial  chair,  Luther  remained 
at  heart  a  son  of  the  people,  and  it  was  this  that  made  him 
the  people's  hero.  His  disciples  extolled  him  for  having,  as 
they  expressed  it,  freed  the  noble  German  people  from  the 
Roman  and  Babylonian  captivity  like  a  true  Samson ;  but  Luther 
did  far  more  than  this  :  his  nation  was  threatening  to  sink 
into  mere  frivolity,  he  recalled  it  to  earnestness  and  a  serious 
view  of  life. 

Whether  we  glorify  or  condemn  Luther's  action  it  is  impossible 
to  deny  that  he  had  the  support  of  the  people,  and  also  that  the 
Reformation  was  of  the  greatest  benefit  to  the  intellectual  life  of 
the  German  nation.  Those  districts  where  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel  did  not  prevail,  or  where  it  was  suppressed,  remained  for  a 
long  time  shut  off  from  any  great  intellectual  or  literary  develop- 
ment. Without  the  enthusiasm  of  the  reformed  religion,  without 
the  educational  influence  which  the  Lutheran  pastors  exercised  on 
the  people,  there  was  no  mental  progress.  As  long  as  Luther  lived 
he  was  the  centre  of  Germany ;  scholars  streamed  to  Wittenberg 
from  all  parts,  and  then  spread  the  spirit  of  reform  throughout  the 
world.  With  Luther  died  the  unity  of  German  Protestantism.  In 
the  Smalkaldic  war  Wittenberg  passed  to  the  other  Saxon  line ; 
Melanchthon  did  not  exhibit  the  firmness  which  the  occasion  re- 
quired, and  Luther's  University  lost  its  supremacy  for  ever.  Luther's 
memory,  however,  remained  sacred  to  all  Protestants.  Exhaustive 
editions  of  his  works  were  published,  a  collection  was  made  of 
his  letters  and  table-talk,  and  the  pastor,  Johann  Mathesius,  of 
Joachimsthal,  narrated  his  life  in  an  excellent  and  truly  popular  style. 
Luther's  pre-eminent  authority  was  not  altogether  a  blessing  for  his 
Church ;  it  became  also  a  weapon  of  intolerance,  and  a  source  of 
dissension.  But  the  influence  of  his  powerful  mind  continued  to 


282  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.        [ch.  ix. 

make  itself  felt  after  his  death  far  beyond  the  circle  of  those  who 
counted  themselves  as  his  rightful  heirs. 

LUTHER'S  ASSOCIATES  AND  SUCCESSORS. 

The  movement  of  the  Reformation  caused  an  immense  increase 
in  literary  production.     The  number  of  German  printing-presses 
increased   ninefold   in    the   years   1516   to   1524.     It   is    useless 
to  attempt  to  give  even  an  approximately  complete  description 
Literature    °f  tne  literature  suddenly  called  forth  by  the  great 
of  the       religious  movement,  or  to  think  of  reviewing  the  theo- 
Reformation.  iOg;ans  of  thjs  period  according  to  their  literary  capa- 
cities.    Men  wrote  in  German  and  in  Latin,  in  verse  and  in  prose, 
in  the  tone  of  bitter  controversy,  and  in  that  of  quiet  discussion. 
Luther  found  enemies  to  right  and  left.     The  radical  Anabap- 
Luther's      tists  cultivated  that  mysticism  in  which  he  too  had 
opponents.    once  founc}  comfort,  but  which  had  failed  to  exercise 
any  decisive  influence  on  his  thoughts.     The  Anabaptists  dissemi- 
nated their  doctrines  among  the  people  by  means  of  small  pam- 
phlets, and  also  wrote  hymns  from  their  own  point  of  view.     Two 
Anabaptist   of  their  sect,  Denk  and  Hatzer,  anticipated  Luther  in 
writers.      the  translation  of  the  Old  Testament  prophets,  and 
Sebastian  Franck  of  Word  acquired   most   literary  fame  among 
them  as  a  historian,  geographer,  and  collector  of  proverbs,  while 
the  noble  Kasper  von  Schwenckfeld  was  the  one  who  lived  longest 
in  the  memory  of  his  disciples. 

If  we  exclude  the  opposition  of  scholars  like  Eck,  Emser,  Coch- 

Thomas      laus,  and  Erasmus,  Thomas  Murner  (see  p.  257)  must 

Murner.      be  reckoned  as  the  most  prominent  among  Luther's 

opponents  on  the  Catholic  side.     Murner  had  formed  his  literary 

style  on  that  of  Sebastian  Brand  and  Geiler  von  Kaisersberg.     He 

attacked  the  Reformation  in  a  satire  in  rhymed  couplets,  entitled 

'  Der  grosse  Lutherische  Narr '  ('  The  great  Lutheran  fool ').    The 

work  is  cleverly  planned,  though  somewhat  carelessly  carried  out, 

and  it  rises  in  some  parts  to  a  quite  dramatic  interest. 

Luther's         On  Luther's  side  were  arrayed  Humanists  like  Ulrich 

associates,    von  Hutten  and  Willibald  Pirkheimer,  popular  writers 

like   Hans   Sachs,   Eberlin   von   Glinzburg,   Niclas  Manuel,   Utz 


Ch.  IX.]          Luther's  Associates  and  Successors.  283 

Eckstein,  and  many  other  writers  whose  names  have  not  been 
preserved.  The  Prankish  knight,  Ulrich  von  Hut-  uirich  von 
ten,  had  already  fought  in  Reuchlin's  cause,  and  had  Hutten. 
been  an  active  coadjutor  in  the  '  Epistolae  obscurorum  virorum/ 
Longing  for  new  activity  he  now  espoused  Luther's  cause,  and 
handled  the  pen  as  though  it  were  a  sword.  He  wrote  Epi- 
grams, Invectives,  Speeches,  Dispatches,  Complaints,  and  Dia- 
logues— all  in  the  youthful  chivalrous  tone  which  is  peculiarly  his 
own,  and  all  at  first  in  Latin.  But  at  the  end  of  the  year  1520, 
three  years  before  his  death,  he  began  to  write  in  German. 
He  wrote  in  rhymed  couplets  complaining  of  the  'unchristian 
power  of  the  Pope.'  He  addressed  words  of  urgent  warning  to 
Charles  V,  and  narrated  the  history  of  the  various  struggles  between 
Emperor  and  Pope.  He  produced  stirring  songs  His  songs 
in  connection  with  the  great  religious  struggle  in  and 
Germany ;  among  these  we  may  specially  mention  dialogues. 
the  brave  and  earnest  song  beginning :  '  Ich  hab's  gewagt  mit 
Sinnen/  which  appeared  in  1521.  He  also  translated  some  of 
his  Latin  dialogues  into  German.  From  1517  to  1521  he  wrote 
in  dialogue-form,  and  made  it  the  fashionable  style  for  the 
controversial  literature  of  the  Reformation.  Thus  he  represents 
Duke  Ulrich  of  Wiirtemberg,  the  murderer  of  Hutten's  cousin, 
as  meeting  in  the  lower  world  with  the  most  celebrated  tyrants 
of  antiquity;  or  he  makes  a  German,  lately  come  from  Italy, 
enumerate  all  the  sins  of  Rome  in  order.  In  one  dialogue 
Helios  and  Phaethon  are  supposed  to  be  looking  down  on  the 
Diet  of  Augsburg  in  1518,  and  Helios  is  made  to  describe  all 
ranks  in  the  German  nation.  In  another,  a  Papal  Bull  is  intro- 
duced fighting  with  German  Liberty ;  many  allies  on  both  sides 
mingle  in  the  fray,  and  finally  the  Bull  bursts,  and  out  of  it  come 
Indulgence,  Superstition,  Ambition,  Avarice,  Hypocrisy,  Deception, 
Perjury,  and  Voluptuousness.  The  dialogue,  '  Arminius,'  published 
after  Hutten's  death  in  1529,  first  introduced  the  Hermann-worship 
into  German  poetry.  Tacitus'  praise  of  the  old  chief  of  the 
Cherusci  and  Velleius'  report  of  the  battle  with  Varus,  which 
had  only  lately  become  known,  inflamed  the  patriotic  hearts  of 
the  German  classical  scholars.  Here  they  had  at  length  a  sure 


284  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  ix. 

basis  for  national  pride,  a  reason  for  glorying  over  the  Italians. 
Hutten's  Arminius,  when  in  the  Lower  World  before  the  judg- 
ment-seat of  Minos,  makes  a  claim  to  be  recognised  as  the  first 
general,  and  he  gains  at  least  the  acknowledgment  of  having  been 
first  among  the  Liberators  of  their  country. 

The  literary  war  called  forth  by  the  Reformation  was  continued 
Other  most  vigorously  till  1530.  In  1520  the  Niirnberg 
polemical  classical  scholar.  Willibald  Pirkheimer,  wrote  his  Latin 
•writers  of  dialogue,  entitled  'Eccius  dedolatus'  ('the  planed 
Eck  '),  directed  against  Dr.  Eck,  Luther's  most  famous 
opponent  at  the  disputation  in  Leipzig.  In  1523  the  Niirnberg 
shoemaker,  Hans  Sachs,  composed  his  '  Wittenbergisch  Nachtigall' 
in  praise  of  Luther,  and  in  1524  he  wrote  four  excellent  prose  dia- 
logues, exhorting  to  reconciliation  and  moderation.  The  Fran- 
ciscan Eberlin  von  Giinzberg  published  in  1521  his  'Fiinfzehn 
Bundgenossen '  ('  Fifteen  confederates '),  a  series  of  essays  on  the 
Reform  movement.  Niclas  Manuel,  a  Bernese  painter,  statesman, 
and  soldier,  wrote  dramas  advocating  the  principles  of  the  Re- 
formers, as  well  as  a  poetic  dialogue  in  which  a  girl  refuses  to  go  into 
a  nunnery,  and  an  excellent  prose  dialogue,  entitled  '  Die  Krankheit 
der  Messe'  ('  The  Illness  of  the  Mass'),  published  in  1528.  The 
pastor  Utz  Eckstein,  of  the  Canton  of  Zurich,  published  similar  but 
less  successful  conversations  and  dramas  in  1526  and  1527.  A 
Anonymous  great  many  anonymous  dialogues  appeared  at  this 
dialogues,  time,  most  of  them  argumentative  or  instructive  in 
tendency,  but  showing  great  variety  in  outward  form.  We  will 
give  a  few  examples  of  the  subjects  of  these  pamphlets.  Luther 
and  Murner  meet  by  chance  in  the  house  of  the  peasant  Karsthaus ; 
Murner  runs  away,  and  Luther  wins  over  the  peasant  to  his  doc- 
trines. An  Augustinian  converts  a  Dominican  to  the  new  doctrine ; 
a  peasant  converts  a  monk ;  peasants  take  their  pastor  to  task ; 
Luther  struggles  successfully  with  his  opponents,  who  appear  in 
the  shape  of  animals,  as  he  himself  loved  to  describe  them ;  Emser 
as  a  goat,  Murner  as  a  cat,  and  so  on.  The  Pope  allies  himself 
with  Hell  in  order  to  make  a  futile  onslaught  on  Heaven.  The 
questions  of  the  day  are  also  discussed  in  leiters :  a  nun  is  made 
to  give  utterance  to  evangelical  sentiments,  or  the  question  oileaving 


Ch.  ix.]          Luther's  Associates  and  Successors.  285 

the  convent  is  talked  over.  The  Pope  holds  a  correspondence  with 
the  Devil ;  Lucifer  praises  the  priesthood,  thereby  revealing  the  cor- 
rupt state  of  the  Church.  In  a  report  of  the  Diet  of  Worms  a  parallel 
is  drawn  between  Luther's  life  and  the  history  of  Christ's  passion. 

Printed  reports  or  criticisms  of  the  latest  events  were  even  then 
sometimes  called  '  Zeitungen '  (Newspapers).  The  rp^  flj.^ 
first  of  these  appeared  at  Augsburg  in  1505,  and  newspapers, 
contained  intelligence  about  Brasil,  published  by  the  circa  150a 
Fugger  family1.  In  the  second  and  third  decade  of  the  sixteenth 
century  these  newspapers  became  more  frequent.  But  regularly 
numbered  journals  first  began  to  appear  in  the  year  1566,  at  the 
time  of  the  Turkish  scare ;  and  serial  newspapers  in  half-yearly  or 
monthly  numbers  were  started  in  the  year  1585  in  Cologne,  Frank- 
furt, and  Augsburg.  Side  by  side  with  these  the  printed  songs  and 
poems  in  rhymed  couplets,  which  had  been  the  older  instruments 
of  journalism,  continued  to  thrive  with  undiminished  popularity  till 
about  1650;  the  style  and  treatment  in  these  poems  was  not  by 
any  means  more  poetical  than  in  the  newspapers. 

The  octosyllabic  prose-like  rhymed  couplets,  which  had  once 
enjoyed  such  fame  as  the  metre  of  the  chivalrous  epics,  experienced 
a  kind  of  revival  shortly  before  their  final  disappearance.  It  was  found 
now.  as  in  the  fifteenth  century,  that  every  kind  of 
matter  could  be  poured  into  this  form.  Dramas  were 
almost  exclusively  written  in  this  metre,  and  it  was  also  a  favourite 
form  for  tales,  and  for  all  religious  and  didactic  themes.  But  the 
lyric  stanza  was  at  this  time  used  equally  indiscriminately  for  the 
most  various  subjects.  Many  of  the  Mastersingers,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  oldest  traditional  forms  of  lyric  poetry,  joined  the 
Reformation  movement.  In  their  poems  they  ascribed  reformed 
opinions  to  the  founders  of  their  art,  amongst  whom  they  reckoned 
Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  and  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide. 

Many  parts  of  the  Bible  were  now  turned  into  verse  by  Master- 
singers  and  ministers,  and  even  a  versified  abridgement  of  the 
whole  Bible  was  produced.  In  this  form,  often  set  to  a  well-known 
melody,  the  Scriptures  could  best  be  impressed  on  the  memory  of 

1  A  great  merchant-family  of  Augsburg,  the  'Rothschilds'  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries. 


286  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.      [Ch.  ix. 

the  people.  No  less  than  seventeen  rhymed  versions  were  made 
of  the  Psalms,  and  Church-hymns  were  constantly  drawn  from  this 
source.  In  hymn- writing  Luther  led  the  way  and  incited  his  friends 
to  help  him.  In  1528  he  published  a  hymn-book  containing 

Hymn-  thirty-seven  hymns  by  various  authors.  Their  num- 
writing  after  ber  was  greatly  increased  during  the  sixteenth  century, 

Luther.  an^  tne  Lutheran  hymns  excited  a  wholesome  rivalry 
in  other  religious  circles  outside  the  Lutheran  sect.  Many  of 
these  hymns  were  written  in  imitation  of  Luther's  style,  and  have 
a  bold  and  manly  ring  about  them  even  when  written  by  a 
woman,  as  in  the  case  of  Elizabeth  Cruciger.  They  are  not  re- 
markable for  elegance  of  diction,  but  their  simplicity  and  sublime 
earnestness  appeal  most  powerfully  to  our  hearts. 

But  this  only  applies  to  the  best  among  the  older  Lutheran 
hymns,  those  which,  like  Luther's,  only  embodied  the  general 
feelings  of  a  Christian  congregation  towards  its  God.  Soon  after 
Luther's  death  feeble  repetition,  verbosity,  and  triviality  began  to 
assert  their  power,  and  a  few  poets  developed  an  amazing  fertility 
in  hymn-writing.  Besides  the  congregational  hymns  giving 
utterance  to  the  feelings  of  the  worshippers,  we  now  find  many  in 
which  the  Christian  is  made  to  express  his  individual  feelings, 
perhaps  in  some  special  circumstances ;  hymns  of  the  dying  are 
particularly  numerous.  The  best  hymns,  about  the  year  1600,  are 
more  tender  in  sentiment,  more  ornate  in  form  than  the  earlier 
ones,  and  sometimes  rather  trivial  in  tone. 

The  language  of  the  Song  of  Solomon  now  came  again  into  favour, 

and  the  soul  was  made  to  address  Christ  in  words  such  as  these : 

'Ei  mein  Bliimlein,  Hosianna,  himmlisch  Manna  das  wir  essen, 

Deiner  kann  ich  nicht  vergessen.'     ('  Ah,  my  floweret,  Hosanna, 

heavenly  manna  which  we  eat,  Thee  I  never  can  forget.')     Since 

the  year  1570  it  had  again  become  the  fashion  to  transform  large 

numbers  of  popular  songs  into  sacred  hymns,  and  owing  to  this 

the  hymns  acquired  a  more  cheerful   character.     On   the   other 

Bartholo-    hand  manv  a  well-meaning  pastor  recognised  no  fixed 

maus        boundary  between  the  sphere  of  religious  teaching  and 

Bingwaid.    reijgjous  song.     In  the  writings  of  the  excellent  Bar- 

tholomaus  Ringwald,  who  died  about  1600,  we  find  both  united, 


Ch.  ix.]          Luther  s  Associates  and  Successors,  287 

and  sacred  song  was  not  improved  by  the  union.  Ringwald  wrote 
two  didactic  poems,  one  of  which  gives  a  description  of  Heaven 
and  Hell  in  the  form  of  a  vision,  while  the  other  deals  with  the 
conception  of  the  Christian  knight.  Both  are  full  of  satirical 
elements,  and  their  strongest  point  is  detailed  description.  But 
this  abundance  of  detail  often  makes  poetry  insipid,  and  this  is 
perceptibly  the  case  in  those  hymns  where  Ringwald  has  chosen 
subjects  which  had  been  already  handled  by  Luther. 

Calvinism,  which  after  Luther's  death  had  become  powerful  in 
the  South-West  of  Germany,  in  the  Palatine  and  in  Hesse,  now 
began  also   to  assert  its  influence  in  the  sphere  of    Caivinist 
religious  poetry;  it  constituted  an  international  ele-       hymns. 
ment  in  German  culture,  and  established  a  special  bond  of  union 
with  France.     The  Calvinists  would  admit  nothing  but  the  Psalms 
as  Church-hymns,  and  the  French  version  of  these  by  Cle'ment 
Marot  and  Theodore  Beza,  with  the  melodies  of  Goudimel(i565), 
spread  wherever  the  followers  of  Calvin  gained  a  firm  footing.     In 

Germany  Paul  Schede,  called  Melissus,  a  celebrated  _ 

3  Paul  Schede. 

Latin   poet,   began   a   translation  of  the  Psalms  at 

Heidelberg  in  1572.  The  complete  version  published  in  1573 
by  Ambrosius  Lobwasser,  professor  at  Konigsberg,  became  the 
authorized  hymn-book  of  German  Calvinists.  It  was  a  servile 
imitation  of  the  original,  and  was  sung  to  the  foreign  melodies. 
Generally  speaking,  French  influence  becomes  perceptible  in  the 
South-West  of  Germany  about  1550,  but  without  entirely  supplanting 
native  taste.  Kaspar  Scheid  of  Worms,  who  had  some  connection 
with  the  Court  at  Heidelberg,  quoted  French  poems  and  intro- 
duced French  works  to  Germany,  but  he  also  joined 

the  school  of  Mastersingers  at  Worms,  and  trans-    Dedekind's 

Latin  poem, 
lated  into  German  rhymed  couplets  the  Latin  jpoem 


«  Grobianus,'  written  by  Friedrich  Dedekind  in  1549.        1549; 

Sebastian  Brand  had  invented  the  character  of  '  St.  tr»nslated  br 

Scheid, 
Grobianus'  (grob=  coarse,  rude)  an  embodiment  of        1551t 

the  obscenity  and   indecency  which  so  unpleasantly 
characterized  this  age. 

Friedrick  Dedekind,    who   became    in    later  years  an    earnest 
Churchman  and    a    religious    dramatist,   was,   when    he     wrote 


388  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  ix. 

'Grobianus,'  a  gay  student  at  Wittenberg.  The  work  contains 
excellent  material  for  satire,  which  the  author,  however,  did  not 
succeed  in  bringing  into  good  shape;  Scheid,  in  his  translation, 
managed  to  increase  the  indecencies,  without  improving  the 
style. 

Johann  Fischart  was  a  nephew  and  pupil  of  Kaspar  Scheid,  and 
Johann  came  from  Mainz  or  Strassburg.  He  wrote  chiefly 

Fischart.  between  the  years  1570  and  1590,  and  during  that 
period  developed  a  marvellous  literary  fertility.  In  1574  he  was 
made  'Doctor  of  Law'  at  Basle,  and  later  on  he  held  various 
offices  in  the  legal  profession.  Long  journeys  and  wide  reading 
contributed  much  to  the  development  of  his  mind.  For  years  he 
lived  an  independent  life  at  Strassburg,  trying  his  hand  at  various 
forms  of  literature,  and  always  with  success.  Like  Scheid  he 
directed  his  attention  to  the  popular  poetry,  and  in  versifying  the 
coarse  History  of  Eulenspiegel,  he  was  carrying  out  a  project  of 
his  teacher's.  Like  Scheid  he  wrote  many  elucidatory  verses  to 

His  comic    accompany  pictures,  and  made  translations  from  Latin 

writings.  and  French  ;  and  like  Scheid  he  chiefly  contributed 
comic  writings  to  German  poetry.  Fischart  chanced  to  light  on 
the  ironical  praises  of  '  Podagra '  (gout)  in  the  literature  of  the 
Renaissance,  and  made  these  the  foundation  for  his  '  Podagram- 
misch  Trost-biichlein '  ('  Book  of  comfort  in  gout ')  published  in 
1577.  In  French  literature  he  owed  much  to  the  writings  of 
Rabelais,  which  furnished  him  with  the  materials  or  the  idea  for 
three  of  his  works,  namely,  his  'Aller  Practik  Grosmutter'  (1572), 
a  satire  on  the  prognostications  and  prophetical  calendars  then 
so  much  in  vogue1,  his  'History  of  Garganlua  '  (1575),  and  his 
satirical  Book-Catalogue, '  Catalogus  Catalogorum '  (1590).  Fisch- 
art's  '  Gargantua '  was  not  so  much  a  translation  as  an  expansion 
of  the  first  book  of  Rabelais'  celebrated  romance ;  Fischart  ex- 
aggerated Rabelais'  peculiar  style,  and  thus  sacrificed  the  epic  to 
the  satiric  interest  of  the  book,  but  his  work  is  hardly  worthy  to  be 
called  a  satire,  consisting,  as  it  does,  of  a  formless  mass  of  comic 
allusions  and  digressions,  puns,  anecdotes,  jingling  rhymes,  per- 
verled  proverbs,  popular  expressions,  piled-up  synonyms,  quota- 
1  This  kind  of  prophesying  was  then  called  '  Tractik.' 


Ch.  IX.]  Luther  s  Associates  and  Successors.  289 

tions  from  '  Volkslieder,'  and  notes  on  games,  food,  manners,  &c. 
The  rhetorical  device  of  accumulating  words,  so  frequently  employed 
by  Luther,  is  the  leading  artistic  principle  of  this  work  of  Fischart's. 
'  Gargantua,'  like  '  Grobianus/  is  a  satire  on  rude  manners,  while 
it  was  also  meant  to  ridicule  monasticism,  mediaeval  education, 
the  universities  and  the  Schoolmen,  and  to  glorify  the  intellectual 
progress  of  the  age.  The  book  ends  with  a  prophecy  of  the 
persecution  of  the  Protestants  and  the  final  triumph  of  truth. 

In  one  respect  Fischart  stood  far  above  the  mild  and  inoffensive 
Scheid ;  he  was  a  champion  of  Protestantism,  a  friend  of  Calvinism, 
but  not  an  enemy  of  Lutheranism;  he  only  attacked  Lutheran 
intolerance,  as  embodied  in  the  '  Formula  Concordiae '  of  1577.  He 
was  the  most  powerful  Protestant  controversialist  after  Luther,  though 
less  popular  and  less  eloquent.  His  original  writings  were  mostly  in 
verse.  He  began  his  career  with  Protestant  polemics,  Hia 
and  his  first  darts  were  directed  against  a  renegade  Pro-  polemical 
testant  and  against  the  mendicant  orders.  He  wrote  in  writings. 
Latin  and  in  German  against  the  Jesuits,  or '  Jesuwider '  (contrary  to 
Jesus)  as  he  calls  them ;  his  '  Jesuiterhiitlein,'  written  in  German 
(1580),  was  founded  on  a  French  poem  which  represented  the  Order 
as  the  work  of  the  Devil  and  his  grandmother.  Fischart  followed 
with  active  sympathy  the  fate  of  the  Protestants  in  France.  Through 
translations  of  French  pamphlets,  to  which  he  was  fond  of 
adding  a  few  rhymes,  he  endeavoured  to  awaken  sympathy  for 
the  persecuted  Huguenots  among  their  German  co-religionists. 
He  translated  from  the  Dutch  Philip  Marnix's  '  Bee-hive,'  a 
comprehensive  Calvinistic  satire  on  Catholicism,  to  which  he 
made  some  additions.  He  repeatedly  argued  against  compulsion 
in  matters  of  faith,  and  he  published  older  writings  advocat- 
ing liberty  of  conscience.  In  his  own  immediate  circle  he 
agitated  for  the  union  of  Strassburg  with  the  Protestant  towns  of 
Switzerland;  his  '  Gliickhaft  Schiff,'  published  in  1576,  describes 
a  voyage  of  the  men  of  Zurich  with  some  broth  which  they  are 
supposed  to  bring  to  Strassburg  still  warm  from  Zurich.  In  1588 
he  wrote  in  praise  of  the  alliance  between  Zurich,  Bern,  and  Strass- 
burg, by  which  these  towns  sought  to  defend  themselves  against  the 
aggressive  policy  of  Spain.  And  when,  in  the  same  year,  the 

u 


290  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.      [Ch.  ix. 

Spanish  Armada  was  destroyed,  and  the  great  European  crusade 
against  Protestantism  thereby  frustrated,  Fischart  wrote  a  trium- 
phal poem  in  honour  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  a  mocking  greeting 
to  the  Spaniards  full  of  the  joy  of  victory  and  the  love  of  freedom. 

But  it  is  not  only  as  a  controversialist   that  Fischart  may  be 
Hi  h  mn     rec^oned  among  the  literary  successors  of  Luther, 
and         He  wrote  psalms  and  other  sacred  hymns,  and  ex- 
didactic      horted  his  fellow-citizens  to  bring  up  their  children 
in  a  Christian  manner.     Like  Luther  he  wrote  in 
praise  of  music,  and  he  placed  Luther,  as  the  reviver  of  psalmody, 
by  the  side  of  King  David. 

In  his  study  of  ancient  literature  he,  like  Luther,  was  chiefly 
attracted  by  the  common-sense  philosophers,  such  as  Plutarch  and 
Horace :  from  the  former  he  derived  his  '  Ehezuchtbiichlein ' 
(Marriage-book),  (1578),  while  he  imitated  the  latter  in  singing 
the  praise  of  rural  life.  He  shared  Luther's  humble  reliance  on 
God,  as  well  as  his  strong  patiiotism  and  his  delight  in  domestic 
happiness. 

Fischart  occupies  a  high  place  among  the  German  poets  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  He  has  great  wealth  of  material,  and  treats  it 
in  a  graphic  manner,  and  he  could  equally  well  express  the  most 
serious  and  the  most  comic,  the  most  sublime  and  the  most  vulgar 
ideas.  His  power  of  figurative  language  is  far  above  the  ordinary 
level,  and  his  verse  is  clever  and  lively,  and  free  from  mere  padding. 
He  possessed  many  of  the  qualities  which  make  a  great  poet,  but 
he  was  deficient  in  taste,  in  sense  of  proportion,  and  in  artistic 
power.  He  represents  the  peculiar  excellences  and  also  the 
peculiar  defects  of  the  age  in  which  he  liv.J. 

SECULAR  LITERATURE. 

The  Reformation,  as  a  religious  movement,  was  as  hostile  to 
secular  interests  as  the  mediaeval  priesthood  had  ever  been.  The 
reformed  religion  countenanced  no  art  except  music,  no  science 
except  theology ;  poetry  was  in  its  eyes  only  a  means  for  theological 
ends,  philology  only  a  key  to  the  Scriptures.  But  the  represen- 
tatives of  the  Reformation  were  not  merely  religious  reformers, 


ch.  ix.]  Secular  Literature.  391 

Their  intellectual  sphere  was  not  entirely  confined  to  religious 
interests.  If  they  wished  to  be  the  leaders  of  the  nation  it 
was  necessary  for  them  to  assert  their  power,  if  not  over 
the  whole  intellectual  life,  yet  over  the  whole  instruction  of  the 
nation. 

This  task  fell  to  Melanchthon,  the  great-nephew  of  Reuchlin  and 
the  friend  and  colleague  of  Luther;  he  was  called  'Praeceptor 

Germaniae/  and  he  well  deserved  the  name.     The 

f~,  ,       ,  ..,,.,.  ,    Melanchthon 

German  school-system,  as  it  existed  from  the  sixteenth      founded 

down  into  the  eighteenth  century,  owed  its  organiza-  the  German 
tion  to  the  hand  of  Melanchthon,  and  this  organization  school- 
also  served  as  a  model  to  the  Jesuits.  It  was,  however, 
not  an  original  creation,  but  only  a  realisation  of  the  thoughts 
which  from  the  beginning  had  characterized  the  Renaissance 
movement  in  Germany.  Latin  was  learnt  in  order  to  use  it 
elegantly  in  speech  and  writing;  Greek  was  learnt  in  order  to 
read  the  New  Testament  in  the  original  text :  all  other  aims  were 
subordinate  to  these.  Many  schools  and  universities,  such  as 
Marburg  (1527),  Konigsberg  (1544),  Jena  (1558),  Helmstadt 
(1576),  Altorf  near  Niirnberg  (1581),  were  founded  afresh  under 
the  influence  of  the  Reformation,  and  it  was  Melanchthon  who 
wrote  the  standard  text-books  for  these  schools  and  universities. 
He  wrote  manuals  of  Greek  and  Latin  grammar,  of  rhetoric  and 
dialectic,  of  theology,  ethics,  physics,  and  psychology.  He  also 
promoted  the  study  of  law,  and  he  deserves  some  praise  for  his 
sketch  of  universal  history.  In  everything  he  insisted  on  a  clear 
system.  His  was  an  organizing  but  not  a  creative  mind.  The  great 
scientific  discoveries  of  the  age  were  made  by  others  around  him. 
The  astronomical  discoveries  of  Copernicus  were  made  known 

to  the  world  in  1543.    About  the  same  time  other  Ger- 

Science. 
man  investigators  in  the  field  of  natural  science  began  to   Copernicus, 

abandon  the  study  of  books  for  the  study  of  the  objects      Qesner, 

themselves;  Conrad  Gesner  of  Ziirich  admirably  sum-         a 

Paracelsus. 

mansed  the  traditional  and  the  newly  acquired  know- 
ledge of  plants  and  animals,  and  another  Swiss,  Theophrastus  Para- 
celsus, recalled  chemistry  from  alchemy  to  the  service  of  medicine. 
Paracelsus  propounded  a  fantastic  natural  philosophy,  whose  prin- 

V  2 


392  The  Reformation  and  t/ie  Renaissance.       [Ch.  ix, 

ciples  were  later  on  united  with  the  kindred  doctrines  of  mys- 
Fhilosophy.  ticis™.   and   thus    led   to    the    theological   views   of 
Jacob        Jacob   Bohme.     Beyond  mere  dreams   of  this  sort, 
B6hme.      however,    German   philosophy   in    this   period    pro- 
duced little  original  thinking.    But  the  true  Protestant  spirit  showed 
itself  in  the  critical  and  historical  researches  of  the 
The  '      so-called   Magdeburg  Centuriators,    Mathias   Flacius 
Magdeburg   and  his  colleagues.    Secular  historical  research  in  this 

Centuria-     perjod  produced  nothing  to  rival  the  work  achieved 
tors. 

by  these  writers  in  ecclesiastical  history,  in  criticising 

authorities  and  in  showing  up  ancient  forgeries.  Many  his- 
torians now  turned  their  attention  to  their  own  national  history, 
and  the  art  of  historical  narrative  found  worthy  representatives  in 
Histories  of  paths  as  yet  untrodden.  The  Middle  Ages  had  only 
Germany,  dealt  with  universal  history;  in  the  year  1505  the 
Alsatian  scholar,  Jacob  Wimpfeling,  an  enthusiastic  patriot,  wrote 
in  Latin  the  first  history  of  Germany.  In  1555  Johannes  Sleiclanus 
wrote  the  History  of  the  Reformation  and  of  Charles  V,  also  in 
Latin,  and  in  the  style  of  Caesar ;  it  was  written  from  the  Protes- 
tant point  of  view,  but  without  any  exaggerated  party-feeling,  and 
it  obtained  for  its  writer  a  European  renown.  Sebastian  Franck 
published  a  universal  history  in  1531,  and  in  1534  a  people's  his- 
tory of  Germany.  Bavaria  found  its  historian  in  Aventinus, 
Switzerland  in  Tschudi,  Pomerania  in  Kantzow.  Biography  was 

also   zealously   cultivated,    for    men    not   only   took 
Biography. 

pleasure   in  the   record   of  the   great  events  which 

they  had  lived  through,  but  also  held  in  grateful  remembrance 
those  by  whose  efforts  the  great  advances  of  the  age  had  been 
brought  about.  By  the  year  1600  a  large  number  of  Latin  bio- 
graphies of  various  scholars  had  appeared,  which,  however,  did  not 
succeed  in  giving  a  really  clear  idea  of  the  character  of  the  men 
whom  they  commemorated.  The  German  autobiographies  of  this 
date,  on  the  contrary,  furnish  graphic  pictures  of  contemporary  life : 
in  aristocratic  circles  we  have  those  of  Gotz  von  Berlichingen, 
Sebastian  Schartlin,  and  Hans  von  Schweinichen,  in  the  learned 
world  those  of  Thomas  and  Felix  Platter,  in  the  bourgeois-class 
that  of  Eariholomaus  Sastrow. 


Ch.  ix.]  Secular  Literature.  293 

The  Latin  poets,  who  were  then   so  numerous  in  Germany, 
were  not  able  to  express  the  inner  life  in  their  poetry.       Latin 
Their  descriptions  of  travels,  their  idylls,  and  their       poetry, 
occasional  poems  seldom  go  beyond  mere  incident  or  rise  above 
conventional    phraseology.     Love-poems   became   more   frequent 
about  the  year  1600,  but  they  continued  to  adhere  to  the  tra- 
ditional forms.     In   poetry  as  in   prose,   religious  subjects   were 
most  in  favour,  and  these  were  treated  sometimes  in  epic,  some- 
times in  lyric  form,  sometimes  almost  dramatically. 

One  of  the  natural  aims  of  the  Renaissance  was  to  make  the 
Classics  accessible  to  wider  circles.  Translations  were  made  from 
Greek  into  Latin,  and  from  Greek  and  Latin  into  Transla- 
German.  But  men  were  far  from  wishing  the  Classics  tions. 
to  enter  into  any  rivalry  with  the  Scriptures,  and  the  character  of  the 
age  is  clearly  intimated  in  its  choice  of  authors  for  translation. 
The  classical  lyric  poets  were  entirely  passed  over,  and  Homer  and 
Virgil  did  not  receive  much  attention.  For  the  Metamorphoses  of 
Ovid  the  modernised  translation  of  the  thirteenth  century  was  for  a 
long  time  considered  sufficient ;  Greek  and  Latin  romances  received 
somewhat  more  attention,  but  the  foremost  place  was  accorded  to 
Roman  comedy,  from  which  men  slowly  passed  to  the  Greek 
Drama.  Equal  favour  was  shown  for  the  didactic  prose-writers — 
Cicero,  Plutarch,  Vitruvius,  Vegetius,  but  especially  the  historians ; 
Livy's  Roman  history  nourished  the  patriotism  of  German  burghers. 
For  the  masses  of  the  people  the  literary  Renaissance  meant 
ILtle  more  than  delight  in  a  few  of  the  thoughts  and  deeds  of  the 
ancients. 

The  classical  fables  also  enjoyed  great  popularity.     They  fur- 
nished moral  teaching  in  a  pleasant  form,  and  afforded  a  wealth 
of  worldly  wisdom  in  graphic  language ;  and  moreover     ciassicai 
this  was  a  class  of  poetry  long  known  to  the  Germans,         and 
one  in  which  they  themselves  had  tried  their  skill  with      German 
success.     Luther  appreciated  both  the  classical  fables 
and  '  Reinecke  Fuchs/  and  declared  the  '  Fable-book '  to  be  the 
most  useful  book,  after  the  Bible,  for  knowledge  of  the  world. 
The    '  Fable-book,'   which   he  refers  to,    was   a    certain   popular 
collection  of  German  prose-fables,  bearing  the  name  of  JEsop  on 


294  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  IX. 

the  title-page;    Luther  himself  had  begun  in  the  year   1530    to 
write  a  masterly  new  version  of  this  book.     The  best  writers  of 
fables  in  verse  at  this  period  were  Erasmus  Alberus,  a  pupil  of 
Luther's,  Burkard  Waldis,  and  Hans  Sachs.      They  mostly  give 
their  materials  a  German  colouring,  and  transfer   the   scene  to 
German  localities,  which  they  describe  somewhat  minutely ;  they 
speak  as  if  they  had  themselves  been  present  at  the  time,  and  they 
even  introduce  personal  experiences,  contemporary  allusions,  and 
Protestant  sentiments  into  their  moral  teaching.    Georg 
hagen's      Rollenhagen  of  Magdeburg,  who  had  studied  at  the 
'  Frosch-     University  of  Wittenberg,  expanded  the  Homeric  war 
mauseier,'    between  the  frogs  and  mice  into  a  manual  of  politics 
and  a  history  of  the  Reformation,   in  which  Luther 
figures  as  the  frog  'Elbmarx'  (1595).     Fischart  in  his  'Flea-hunt' 
Fischart's    (X573)  developed,  with  many  comic  additions,  a  sub- 
'Fiohhatz,'  ject  already  treated  in  an  older  poem,  namely,  the 
war  of  the  women  and  the  fleas.     Fischart  evidently 
meant  to  clothe  this  work  in  the  form  of  a  legal  trial,  but  with 
his  usual  want  of  artistic  power  he  has  not  consistently  adhered 
to  this  plan  throughout.     Animal-poetry  is  further  represented,  in 
Spangen-     somewhat  different  form,  by  Master  Wolfhart  Span- 
berg's  '  Gans-  genberg's  '  Goose-king,'   published  at   Strassburg   in 
kdnig,'  1607.  !60^     This  poem,  written  with  a  Protestant  bias,  is 
an  ironical  eulogy  of  the  goose,  representing  the  bird  as  a  noble 
creature,  which  annually  on  St.  Martin's  day  voluntarily  suffers  death 
by  fire  for  the  good  of  humanity.     In  return  for  this,  the  goose  is 
admitted  to  the  paper-heaven  of  calendar  saints,  which  is  graphically 
and  humorously   described.      This  work  shows   more   power  of 
imagination  than  any  of  Fischart's  writings. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  we  noticed  that  the  distinction  between 

Tales  and    fable  and  tale  was  hardly  perceptible,  and  that  both 

Proverbs.    were  furnished  with  a  moral ;  and  this  is  still  the  case 

in  the  sixteenth  century.     These  two  branches  of  literature  are  as 

indistinguishable  in  Hans    Sachs   as   in   Strieker.     Formerly  the 

moral  was   often  expressed   in  a  proverb  at  the  end ;    now  the 

process   is  reversed,  and  a  proverb  is  made  the   text,  and  then 

illustrated  by  fables  and  short  anecdotes.     Il  was  in   tint,  form 


ch.  ix. J  Secular  Literature.  295 

that  didactic  poems  like  Freidank's  'Bescheidenheit'  were  continued 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  All  kinds  of  didactic,  anecdotic,  and 
narrative  material,  comic  and  serious,  in  verse  and  in  prose,  were 
woven  in  motley  tissue  round  a  thread  of  proverbs,  of  proverbial 
expressions,  or  sometimes  even  of  maxims  invented  by  the  writer 
himself.  Collections  of  this  kind  had  been  begun  by  Erasmus, 
Bebel,  and  other  scholars  of  the  German  Renaissance.  One  of 
Luther's  own  circle,  Agricola  of  Eisleben,  made  them  the  vehicle 
for  Protestant  sentiments.  The  Anabaptist  Sebastian  Franck  pa- 
triotically endeavoured  to  show  that  the  Germans  possessed  not 
less  but  more  of  these  treasures  of  wisdom  than  other  nations : 
'  Wherever,'  he  says,  '  the  Latins,  Greeks,  or  Hebrews  have  one 
proverb,  we  have  ten.' 

Meanwhile,  the  prose  literature  of  amusement  had  long  attained 
an  independent  existence.  In  his  book  entitled  '  Schimpf  und 
Ernst'  (Jesting  and  Seriousness),  published  in  1522,  Johannes 
Pauli  collected  a  mass  of  mediaeval  anecdotes,  such  as  had  been 
used  for  illustrations  in  sermons.  Pauli  was  an  Alsatian  Franciscan 
and  a  faithful  follower  of  Geiler  von  Kaisersberg.  The  Latin 
farcical  stories,  most  of  them  very  coarse,  of  the  Re-  Farcical 
naissance  scholars,  of  men  like  Poggio  and  Bebel,  anecdotes, 
became  the  foundation  of  later  German  collections,  which,  however, 
also  borrowed  from  oral  tradition,  from  Boccaccio  and  from  other 
sources.  Between  the  years  1555  and  1563,  not  less  than  eight 
of  these  compilations  appeared,  with  attractive  titles:  Wickram's 
'  Rolhvagenbiichlein'  (Carriage-book),  Frey's  '  Gartengesellschaft ' 
(Garden-party),  Montanus'  'Wegkiirzer'  (Journey-shortener)  and 
'  Ander  Theil  der  Gartengesellschaft,'  Lindener's  '  Katzipori '  and 
'  Rastbiichlein/  Schumann's '  Nachtblichlein,'  and  Kirchhof  s '  Wen- 
dunmuth  '  (Cheer  for  Low-spirits).  In  the  years  immediately  follow- 
ing the  Religious  Peace,  men  took  great  delight  in  funny  stories ; 
they  loved  to  spice  their  conversation  with  them,  and  did  not  even 
spare  the  ears  of  women.  Protestant  zeal  found  great  satisfaction 
in  reporting  in  such  stories  the  evil  things  narrated  by  the  scholars 
of  the  Renaissance  concerning  the  Catholic  clergy;  but  still,  Protes- 
tantism maintained  an  attitude  of  decided  hostility  towards  two 
branches  of  literature, — the  secular  '  Volkslied  '  and  the  novel. 


296  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.      [ch.  ix. 

Luther  expressly  contrasted  his  songs  and  those  of  his  colleagues 
with  the  'Love-poems  and  fleshly  songs'  of  the  period.  He 
wished,  like  Otfried  long  before  him,  to  supplant  secular  songs  by 
religious  poetry.  But  he  succeeded  in  his  purpose  no  better  than 
the  old  monk,  although  he  was  able  to  apply  to  the  task  powers 
far  superior  to  Otfried's.  On  the  contrary,  we  find  that  in  the 
Secular  course  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  secular  part-song 
songs.  greatly  increased  in  power,  and  became  a  favourite 
form  of  recreation  among  the  bourgeois  families.  Songs  were 
now  no  longer  circulated  by  mere  hearing,  but  by  music-books. 
They  passed  beyond  the  masses  of  the  people  into  more  cultured 
circles.  About  the  year  1600  songs  begin  to  be  international; 
we  meet  in  Germany  with  Italian  melodies,  with  canzonets,  motetts, 
villanelles,  galliardes,  neapolitaines,  &c.  The  words  of  these 
foreign  songs  were  translated  or  imitated,  and  thus  the  German 
songs  about  this  time  began  to  be  adorned  with  foreign  expres- 
sions and  allusions  to  ancient  mythology.  These  songs  are 
generally  spoken  of  as  '  Gesellschaftslieder,'  social  songs ;  still 
they  owe  their  origin  to  the  'Volkslied/  and  are  but  a  develop- 
ment of  it.  They  borrowed  from  foreign  sources,  but  without  de- 
spising the  native  treasures.  A  song  might  call  itself  a  galliard, 
and  yet  begin  in  true  German  fashion : — 

'Ach  Elslein,  liebstes  Elslein  mein, 
Wie  gern  war  ich  bei  dir.' 

The  Lutheran  clergy  were  also  hostile  to  the  prose-novel,  al- 
though   the    romance    of    '  Die    schone    Magelone ' 

Novels. 

appeared  with  a  commendatory  notice   by   Luther's 

friend  Spalatinus.  But  the  prose-novel,  like  the  'Volkslied,'  suc- 
ceeded in  asserting  its  claim  to  general  popularity  in  spite  of  the 
clergy.  Novel-writers  continued  borrowing  from  foreign  sources 
as  in  the  fifteenth  century,  but  at  the  same  time  the  original  crea- 
tive power  of  the  Germans  began  to  exert  itself  more  vigorously 
and  in  a  nobler  manner  than  before.  The  spirit  of  the  Reforma- 
tion is  clearly  stamped  on  a  People's  Book  called  '  Kaiser  Fried- 
rich,'  which  appeared  in  1519;  it  narrated  the  treacherous  and 
overbearing  conduct  of  the  Pope  towards  ihe  Emperor,  and  told 


ch.  ix.]  Secular  Literature.  297 

how  the  latter  would  one  day  come  forth  from  his  mountain-cave 
to  punish  the  priesthood. 

Between  the  years  1533  and  1539,  after  the  storms  of  the  Refor- 
mation had  somewhat  subsided,  five  novels  were  intro- 

T-.  i  •  i     •         Five  novels 

duced  from  trance,  and  soon  attained  great  popularity;     borrowed 

these  were,  the  tale  of  the  heathen  giant  '  Fierabras/      from  the 

and  that  of  the  four  '  Haimonskinder,'  stories  of  fight-      French, 

X533~1539« 
ing  and  bloodshed  full  of  wild  force  and  rude  poetry, 

reflections  of  a  bygone  barbarous  age  which  appealed  to  the  rude 
taste  of  the  present  period.  Besides  these  two  tales  there  were  the 
romances  of  '  Kaiser  Octavianus '  and  '  Die  schone  Magelone,' 
telling  of  separation  and  re-union,  and  lastly  '  Ritter  Galmy/  a  tale 
of  injured  innocence  finally  triumphant. 

Soon  after  this  the  first  step  in  original  novel-writing  was  taken 
by  Jorg  Wickram  of  Colmar.  He  was  a  most  active  J5rg 
writer,  a  Mastersinger,  a  dramatist,  a  collector  of  tales,  Wickram's 
a  moralist,  and  for  a  long  time  the  only  original  novel-  Novels, 
writer  in  Germany.  His  four  stories  were  written  between  the  years 
1551  and  1556.  In  '  Gabriotto  und  Reinhard,' the  fortunes  of 
two  noble  pairs  of  lovers  suffer  shipwreck  owing  to  difference  of 
rank.  In  the  '  Goldfaden '  the  peasant's  son  Leufried  triumphs 
over  the  hindrance  of  his  low  birth,  and  wins  the  Count's  fair 
daughter  Angliana.  The  '  Knabenspiegel '  (Mirror  for  Boys) 
relates  the  story  of  a  prodigal  son,  who  afterwards  repents  and  re- 
turns home.  The  '  Gute  und  bose  Nachbarn '  is  a  commonplace 
family  history,  introducing  no  inward  conflicts,  but  merely  outward 
dangers  which  are  happily  warded  off.  Wickram  wrote  for  the 
youth  of  Germany,  from  his  own  provincial  and  bourgeois  point 
of  view.  It  is  not  love  and  chivalrous  life  that  interest  him  most, 
but  marriage  and  the  bringing-up  of  children.  Even  when  he  trans- 
ports his  characters  to  distant  regions  and  makes  them  go  through 
romantic  adventures,  their  speech  and  their  sentiments  still  remain 
those  of  German  burghers.  His  creations  were  derived  from  his 
reading  of  the  older  popular  romances,  and  the  incidents  and  ideas 
which  he  combines  can  in  general  be  easily  traced  to  their  original 
source.  His  works  bear  the  same  relation  to  the  borrowed  ro- 
mances of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  that  the  original 


398  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.      [ch.  IX. 

narratives  of  the  thirteenth  century  bore  to  the  classic  chivalrous 
epics. 

After  Wickram  foreign  elements  again  begin  to  intrude,  and 

Translated    translations  of  classical,  French,  and  Italian  romances 

romances.    were  offered  to  the  German  public.     The  long-winded 

romance  of  '  Amadis  of  Gaul '  in  particular,  with  its  exaggerated 

form  of  chivalry,  its  conventional  gallantry,  its  affected  and  stilted 

style,  its  long  moralisings,  in  short  with   its   general  artificiality, 

won  the  hearts  of  the  German  nobility.     Between  the  years  1569 

and  1594  it  was  expanded  to  twenty-four  volumes. 

Meanwhile  in  Germany  itself  new  popular  romances  had  sprung 
Collections  up  in  the  form  of  collections  of  short  tales  of  similar 
of  stories,  purport,  which  were  attributed  to  one  author,  often 
a  historical  character.  These  popular  books  appeared  later  than 
the  collections  of  funny  stories  which  we  mentioned  above,  and 
drew  largely  from  them.  The  '  Finkenritter '  was  a  collection  of 
wildly  improbable  stories,  which  appeared  about  the  year  1560. 
Claus  Narr,  who  was  a  jester  at  the  Court  of  the  Elector  John 
Frederick  of  Saxony,  and  died  in  1532,  became  the  popular 
centre  of  all  fools'  stories  ;  his  '  Historie  '  appeared  in  1572.  Hans 
Clauert  of  Trebbin,  first  glorified  in  print  in  the  year  1587,  has 
many  points  of  similarity  to  Eulenspiegel.  Stories  of  magic 
centred  round  Doctor  Faustus,  and  appeared  first  in  a  collected 
form  in  1587.  The  foolish  things  told  of  provincials  were  immor- 
talised in  1597  in  the  '  Schildburger '  (Citizens  of  Schilda). 

The  literary  worth  of  all  these  works  is  very  small.  The 
The  '  Schildburger '  stands  relatively  highest  among  them. 

« Schild-      It  is  better  put  together  than  any  of  the  others,  and 

burger.      jt  shows  fae  hand  of  a  cultivated  author,  who  was, 

however,  unable  to  adhere  consistently  to  his  first  intentions  or  to 

express  his  ideas  in  lively  narrative.     Of  all  these  stories,  those 

Stories  of    which  centred  round  Faust  were  alone  destined  to 

Faust.  nave  a  great  future.  '  Eulenspiegel,'  the  '  Finken- 
ritter,' and  the  '  Schildbtirger,'  and  all  these  jesters,  clowns,  and 
wags,  aimed  only  at  satisfying  the  fun-loving  tendency  of  the  age  ; 
but  the  story  of  Faust  contained  food  for  more  serious  minds. 
The  comic  stories  supplied  material  for  the  clown  of  the  drama, 


Ch.  ix.]  Secular  Literature.  299 

and  Claus  Narr  actually  became  a  name  sometimes  used  for  this  cha- 
racter in  German  plays ;  but  the  story  of  Faust  furnished  material 
for  a  tragedy.  These  comic  stories  were  only  an  episode,  a  re- 
creation, so  to  speak,  in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
but  the  spirit  of  the  Reformation  had  a  share  in  producing  the 
character  of  Faust.  Faust  represents  the  attitude  of  the  Reforma- 
tion towards  science  and  the  pleasures  of  the  senses,  in  fact,  to- 
wards the  secular  world  in  general. 

There  was  a  historical  Faust  whose  life  can  be  traced  in  the 
records  of  his  contemporaries  from  the  year  1507  till  The  legend 
after  1530.  He  was  a  man  of  licentious  character,  of  Faust, 
who  travelled  about  as  a  magician,  astrologer,  and  soothsayer,  and 
boasted  of  being  able  to  work  all  the  miracles  of  Christ.  He 
had  been  seen  in  many  places,  and  men  believed  that  he  was 
finally  carried  off  by  the  Devil,  who  accompanied  him  during  his 
life-time  in  the  form  of  a  black  dog.  Stories  were  told  of 
him  such  as  were  told  in  the  Middle  Ages  of  Simon  Magus, 
of  Albertus  the  Great,  and  others.  The  man  of  science  was  then 
popularly  supposed  to  be  endowed  with  a  magical  power  over 
nature,  a  power  given  not  by  God,  but  by  the  Devil.  But  the 
Faust  of  the  legend  is  not  only  a  magician,  but  also  a  classical 
scholar.  He  audaciously  attempts  to  restore  the  lost  comedies  of 
Plautus  and  Terence,  and  he  gives  lectures  in  Erfurt  on  Homer, 
and  calls  up  the  old  heroes  in  person  before  his  audience.  He  con- 
jures up  Helen  of  Troy  from  the  lower  world,  in  order  to  enjoy 
life  with  her,  and  the  child  that  she  bears  him  reveals  to  him  many 
future  events  that  are  to  come  to  pass  in  all  countries.  He 
takes  to  himself  eagles'  wings  and  wishes  to  explore  all  the 
depths  of  Heaven  and  Earth.  He  defies  God,  like  the  ancient 
Titans  who  stormed  heaven.  His  defiance  has  its  source  in  the 
Popish  religion.  The  corruptions  which  Faust  has  witnessed  in 
Rome  had  hardened  him  in  his  sins;  he  lacks  steadfast  faith  in 
Christ,  and  holds  the  grace  of  God  to  be  an  impossible  thing. 
In  fact,  the  Faust  of  the  legend  is  the  exact  contrast  to 
Luther.  Luther  believes  where  Faust  doubts;  Luther  reverences 
the  Scriptures,  but  Faust  waives  them  aside ;  Luther  distrusts 
reason,  Faust  is  an  independent  enquirer;  Luther  struggles  with 


300  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.      [Ch.  ix. 

the  Devil  and  triumphs  over  him,  while  Faust  succumbs  to  his 
power. 

One  of  the  best  pamphlets  of  the  Reformation-period  describes 
how  a  devil  appeared  to  Luther  in  monk's  attire,  and  conveyed  to 
him  the  proposals  of  hell :  he  shall  be  a  cardinal  if  he  will  hold  his 
tongue.  But  Luther  struggles  against  this  temptation  with  prayer, 
and  repels  the  messenger  with  strong  words.  This  story  is  a 
faithful  reflection  of  Luther's  mind,  and  his  own  strong  belief  in 
devils  descended  to  his  followers.  In  the  time  of  the  religious 
peace  it  became  customary  to  refer  the  various  vices  to  separate 
devils,  and  to  attack  them  in  moral  and  satirical  writings.  The 
Faust-legend  stands  in  close  connection  with  this  devil-lore.  Its 
hero — like  the  priest  Theophilus  and  others — makes  a  compact 
with  the  Devil ;  Faust  is  not  however,  like  them,  saved  through 
prayer,  but  falls  a  victim  to  eternal  damnation.  This  was  the  form 
which  the  story  took  in  print,  and  in  the  same  form  it  was  soon 
represented  on  the  stage. 

THE  DRAMA  FROM  1517  TO  1620. 

The  two  dates  which  I  have  chosen  as  limits  for  the  period 

Hans  Sachs'  which  we  are  about  to  consider  in  the  history  of  the 

flr?t         German   drama   are   associated   with   the   following 

play,  1517.    events  :  Hans  Sachs's  first  Carnival-play  was  written 

'English     in  the  year  1517;  in  the  year   1620  appeared  the 

Comedies     .  English  Comedies  and  Tragedies/  a  work  which 

Tragedies '    mrnisnes  trie  most  important  literary  evidence  of  the 

1620.        influence  which  the  English  drama  had  exercised  on 

the  German  since  about  the  year  1590.     Till  that  time  the  German 

drama  had  been  confined  to  the  same  forms  which  existed  before 

the  Reformation,  and  all  the  plays  which  were  written 
Three  types  .  ,r    . '   . 

of  German    m    Germany  might   be    divided  into   three    classes. 

drama       They  either  had  many  characters  and  displayed  an 

prevalent    epjc  breadth  of  treatment,  like  the  Passion-plays  of 

the  fifteenth  century,  or  they  were  short  and  sketchy, 

like  most  of  the  Carnival-plays,  or  else  they  were  constructed  after 

the  stricter  models  of  ancient  comedy.     The  first  two  groups  of 

plays  were  popular ;  the  dramas  of  the  third  class  were  '  school- 


Ch.  ix.]  The  Drama  from  1517  to  1620.  301 

plays '  ('  Schul-dramen '),  acted  at  the  various  schools  and  univer- 
sities by  the  scholars  and  students1.  The  popular  plays  were 
written  only  in  German,  the  school-plays  in  German  or  Latin. 

The  link  between  the  popular  drama  and  the  modern 

Influence 
German  drama  is  to  be  found  in  the  Latin  plays  based        Of  tne 

on  classical  models.     Terence  was  read  in  the  schools,       Homan 
was  acted  in  the  original  by  the  scholars,  and  imitated        Playfl- 
by  the  teachers.     A  multitude  of  translations  of  Terence  appeared 
in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the  numerous  Latin  imitations  of  the 
same  poet  were  either  translated  into  German  or  copied  in  the 
vulgar  tongue. 

Italy,  France,  Holland,  and  England  had  produced  a  new  kind 
of  Latin  drama,  based  on  the  ancient  drama,  and  the  poetical 
productions  of  these  countries  were  introduced  into  Germany, 
where,  through  the  medium  of  the  school-plays,  they  also  exercised 
an  indirect  influence  on  the  popular  drama. 

The   Reformation,   by   improving    the   schools,   gave    a    new 

stimulus  to  the  school-plays.     Every  German  Gym- 

„    ,     T       ,  ,  ,        .         Influence 

nasmm  (public  school)  dating  from  that  period  has  its       of  the 

theatrical   history,  though  unfortunately  but  little  is  Beformation 

known  of  it.    Luther  was  no  enemy  of  the  drama  :  on       on  the 

drama. 
the  contrary,  he  believed  that  it  was  represented  in  the 

Old  Testament;  he  thought  that  the  books  of  Judith  and  Tobit 
were  originally  plays,  the  former  a  tragedy,  the  latter  a  comedy. 
He  recognised  in  Terence's  plays  a  fair  reflection  of  the  outer  world, 
and  favoured  the  representation  of  them  as  a  good  exercise  in 
language.     He  considered  the  religious  drama  as  an  instrument 
for  spreading  evangelical  truth,  and  only  required  that  it  should  be 
serious  and  moderate  in  tone,  not  farcical  as  it  had  been  under  the 
Papacy.      The   Church  festival-plays,  especially  the         ipne 
Christmas-plays,    were    continued    under   the    Pro-    Protestant 
testant    regime;    the    genuine    Passion-plays   alone       dra™8- 
were  banished   from   within   the   sphere    of  Luther's   immediate 
influence,     for    he     disapproved    of    the    sentimental    view    of 

1  The  acting  oi  plays  at  schools  and  universities  was  also  the  fashion  in 
England  at  this  period.  A  relic  of  these  'school-plays'  remains  in  the 
Westminster  play. 


302  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.      [ch.  ix. 

Christ's  sufferings,  and  said  it  was  not  right  to  mourn  and 
lament  over  Him  as  one  would  over  an  innocent  man.  Those 
dramas  too  which  were  founded  on  sacred  legends  ('  Liigenden,' 
lyings,  as  they  were  termed  by  the  controversialists)  were  banished 
by  the  Protestants.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  drama  acquired  a 
great  increase  of  material  through  the  popularity  of  the  Bible,  and 
all  parts  of  the  Scriptures  were  ransacked  to  furnish  subjects  for 
plays.  A  great  number  of  polemical  dramas,  written  with  a  Protes- 
tant bias,  were  also  produced,  closely  resembling  in  character  those 
satiric  dialogues  which  \\ere  called  forth  in  such  numbers  by  the 
Reformation.  Sometimes  a  polemical  colouring  was  given  to  an 
already  existing  subject,  sometimes  the  polemical  element  was  con- 
fined to  the  moral  which  was  at  that  time  appended  to  every  play. 
The  various  dramatic  forms  of  the  fifteenth  century,  Mysteries, 

Moralities,  Farces,  and '  Sotties/  can  still  be  clearly  dis- 
"Various 
classes  of    tinguished.      But  the  school-drama  only  recognised 

drama  in  tragedy  and  comedy,  and  in  doubtful  cases  tragi- 
the  sixteenth  comedy.  The  popular  carnival-play  formed  a  class 
by  itself.  The  'Sottie'  or  Clown-play  proper  became 
rarer,  but  to  make  up  for  this,  in  some  districts  the  clown  and  his 
jokes  made  their  way  even  into  the  Biblical  plays,  notwithstanding 
Luther's  disapproval.  The  Farces  received  important  additions 
from  the  comic  tales  and  jest-books,  the  Moralities  from  the 
parables  of  the  New  Testament,  the  Mysteries  from  the  History  of 
the  Children  of  Israel,  from  the  life  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles, 
and  from  current  tales  and  novels.  German  history  contributed 
but  little  material  to  the  drama  of  this  epoch.  Now,  as  in  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  play-writers  seldom  tried  to  be  original  in  their 
choice  of  material,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  make  use  of  former  plays 
on  the  same  subject.  The  earliest  dramatic  version  of  a  story  often 
became  the  model  for  all  succeeding  ones. 

Dramas  based  upon  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son  always  intro- 

Biblioal     ducecl  flattering  parasites,  after  the  manner  of  Terence, 

dramas.      an(j  described  profligate  life,  or  else  they  attacked  an 

effeminate    and   indulgent  education,   sometimes   with    a  special 

application  to   student-life   at   the   Universities.     The   stories   of 

Rebecca  and  of  Tobias  furnished  an  opportunity  for  dwelling  on  the 


Ch.  TX.]  The  Drama  from  1517  to  1620.  303 

beauty  of  family  life,  courtship  and  marriage;  the  parable  of 
Dives  and  Lazarus  brought  forward  the  subject  of  social  ine- 
quality; Judith  and  Holofernes  were  made  to  suggest  Turks  and 
Christians. 

The  stories  of  Joseph  and  of  the  Prodigal  Son  were  successfully 
dramatised  by  two  Dutch  scholars ;  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son 
was  treated  by  Gnapheus  of  the  Hague  in  1529,  that  of  Joseph  by 
Cornelius  Crocus  of  Amsterdam  in  1535.  Both  these  plays  are 
written  in  Latin.  The  story  of  Susanna  was  first  dramatised  in 
German  and  in  Latin  in  the  year  1532,  by  a  South  German 
scholar,  Sixtus  Birk  by  name. 

It  can  hardly  have  been  possible  in  any  part  of  Germany  to  draw 
a  fixed  line  between  the  regular  drama  and  the  popular  drama.  But 
the  relation  of  the  one  to  the  other  and  the  prevalent  subjects  and 
forms  of  composition  varied  according  to  time  and  locality. 

In  Switzerland  we  find  at  first  all  branches  of  the  Drama  repre- 
sented.    A   short   play   on   Wilhelm   Tell  was  pro- 
j        j     •       <u  •  r    TT  •        A      T>  XTM  i        Swiss  plays, 

duced   in   the   province   of  Un.     At   Bern,    Niklas 

Manuel  wrote  elaborate  dramas  meant  to  convey  special  truths, 
and  composed  in  the  style  of  the  carnival-plays.  In  1522  he 
published  the  '  Todtenfresser '  (Dead-eaters) — i.  e.  the  clergy  who 
live  on  masses  for  the  dead;  also  the  'Unterschied  zwischen 
Papst  und  Jesus  Christus/  in  which  the  hosts  of  the  Pope  and  the 
Saviour  march  against  each  other  just  in  the  manner  depicted  by 
Luther  and  Lucas  Cranach.  In  1525  Manuel  wrote  the  '  Ablass- 
kramer,'  describing  the  '  Indulgence-monger'  who  no  longer  finds 
any  favour  in  the  villages,  and  is  forced  to  acknowledge  his 
wickednesses.  All  this  is  most  dramatically  conceived  and  carried 
out,  in  a  realistic  manner  calculated  to  appeal  most  strongly  to  the 
popular  mind.  Heinrich  Bullinger  of  Kappel  was  the  author  of 
a  play,  '  Lucretia,'  written  before  1529.  In  1531,  at  Zwingli's  in- 
stigation, Aristophanes'  comedy  of  'Plutus'  (Wealth)  was  performed 
at  Zurich,  in  the  original  Greek.  A  year  before  this,  Petrus 
Dasypodius  had  produced  a  Latin  play  with  a  miser  as  its  central 
character.  Sixtus  Birk  began  his  career  as  a  dramatist  in  Basle  in 
the  year  1532,  and  continued  the  same  at  Augsburg,  thus  handing 
on  to  Swabia  and  Bavaria  the  fashion  of  writing  simple  school- 


304  The  Reformation  and  ttie  Renaissance.      [ch.  ix. 

dramas  on  Bible  subjects,  written  either  in  German  or  in  Latin. 
These  Protestant  plays  soon  had  to  compete  against  the  gorgeous 
representations  arranged  by  the  Jesuits. 

Subsequently,  however,  we  find  most  in  vogue  in  Switzerland  diffuse 
Scriptural  dramas,  lasting  many  days  and  introducing  masses  of 
actors.  In  these  dramas  nothing  was  made  known  by  mere  narrative, 
but  everything  passed  before  the  eyes  of  the  spectator  in  strict  se- 
quence of  time.    The  taste  for  such  dramas  also  pre- 

TliG  clrfinin 

in  Alsace.    vai'ed  in  Alsace.     In  Jorg  Wickram's  '  Tobias '  every 
Jorg        single  incident  is  represented  in  full  detail,  and  every 
Wickrani's   sa(j  or  jOyfui  famfly  event  is  accompanied  by  the  in- 
evitable condolences  or  congratulations  of  the  neigh- 
bours.    But  while  in  Switzerland  these  diffuse  dramas  were  still 
increasing  in  popularity,  in  Alsace,  on  the  contrary,  their  power 
was  declining.     The  influence  of  Hans  Sachs  and  other  writers  was 
beginning  to  assert  itself.     Short  tales  were  dramatised,  and  in 
other  ways  too  an  effort  was  made  towards  greater  conciseness  of 
treatment.      In  the  Strassburg  Gymnasium  and  Academy  the  Re- 
naissance Drama  was  cultivated  after  ancient  classical  models. 

In  Franconia  it  was  Niirnberg — '  the  eye  and  ear  of  Germany/ 

The  drama   as  Luther  called  it — which  set  the  fashion  in  plays  for 

in          the  other  towns.     Niirnberg  remained  what  it  had 

erg.     keen  jn  the  fifteenth  century,  the  classic  home  of  the 

carnival-plays.     But  the  Niirnberg  dramatists  ranged  far  beyond 

the  old  farces.     As   for  Hans  Sachs,  the  Niirnberg 
Hans  Sachs.  .  ... 

shoemaker,  who  surpassed  all  his  colleagues  in  fertility 

and  artistic  power,  there  was  no  province  in  which  he  did  not 
try  his  hand,  no  interest  of  the  time  which  did  not  find  an  echo  in 
his  writings.  Only  in  his  versification  he  persistently  adhered  to  the 
worst  traditions  of  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  had  no  idea 
that  there  could  be  any  fixed  relation  between  matter  and  form. 
In  no  writer  of  the  sixteenth  century  is  the  want  of  assthetic  cul- 
ture which  characterizes  the  epoch  so  apparent  as  in  Hans  Sachs. 
At  the  same  time  he  is  not  incapable  of  artistic  composition,  like 
Fischart,  and  we  may  even  say  that  he  is  the  greatest  poetical 
genius  that  had  appeared  in  Germany  since  the  Minnesingers. 
Although  a  Protestant,  he  had  not  the  combative  temperament  of 


Ch.  IX.]  The  Drama  from  1517  to  1620.  305 

a  Hutten,  a  Murner,  or  a  Manuel.     His  poetry  was  not  inspired 
by  indignation ;    he  retained  his  poetical  composure     p       f  , 
in  the  midst  of  the  troublous  times  in  which  he  wrote,     character 
His  power  of  easy  creation  resulted  from  the  peace-        of  his 
fulness  of  his  nature.     He  looked  on  the  world  with     WTItm8»- 
an  untroubled  glance,  and  could  enter  into  its  life  with  a  sympathy 
free  from  all  egoism.     What  he  himself  observed  he  was  also  able 
to  reproduce  in  \vords.     But  he  endeavoured  to  represent  many 
things  which    had    never   fallen   under   his   observation,  and   he 
made  the  mistake  of  thinking  that  every  form  of  poetry  was  suit- 
able for  every  theme.     He  treated  many  of  his  subjects  in  verses 
for  singing  and  in  epic  rhymed  couplets  as  well  as  in  dramatic 
form,  viz.  in  a  dialogue  in  rhymed  couplets.     It  is  a  pity  that  he 
did  not  likewise  treat  them  in  prose,  for  his  Reformation  pamphlets 
show  us  that  in  prose-writing  he  commanded  a  clear  and  flexible 
style.     He  made  use  of  all  forms  of  writing  in  his  efforts  to  diffuse 
information  on  various  subjects.     He  was  a  real  teacher  of  the 
people,  and   his  teaching  was  of  a  comforting  and  conciliatory 
character,  springing  from  his  own  kind  and  gentle  nature.     He 

always   unites   description    and   reflection  ;    he  is  a 

c    ,        .     .  His  style. 

master  of  description,  and  makes  use  of  it  on  every 

possible  occasion,  but  his  reflections  are  for  the  most  part  trivial. 
He  pictures  graphically  to  himself  all  the  scenes  which  are  within 
his  power  of  imagination.  As  an  instance  of  this  power  we  may 
mention  his  story  of  the  pedlar  who  goes  to  sleep  in  a  wood,  and 
has  his  wares  plundered,  and  his  clothes  damaged  by  apes.  The 
heat,  the  weary  pedlar,  the  quiet  of  the  wood,  the  shade,  the  cool 
spring  inviting  to  rest,  the  pedlar's  dream  which  conjures  up  before 
his  eyes  a  vision  of  a  village  festival  and  of  large  receipts,  the  de- 
vastaiion  caused  by  the  apes,  and  the  exact  contents  of  the  basket 
ransacked  by  them — all  this  is  most  vividly  described.  Hans  Sachs 
does  not  think  of  telling  us  at  the  outset  what  the  pedlar's  pack 
contained,  we  only  learn  it  when  the  things  themselves  come  to 
light ;  action  thus  takes  the  place  of  mere  description.  In  other 
cases,  too,  we  notice  that  he  tries  to  give  his  story  a  poetic  form. 
Thus,  when  wishing  to  describe  the  latest  victories  of  Charles  V, 
he  pictures  himself  as  coming  one  day  into  Ntirnberg  from  the 


306  The  Reformation  and  tJte  Renaissance.       [Ch.  IX. 

country  to  make  purchases,  and  seeing  with  astonishment  many 
signs  of  festal  rejoicing,  and  at  length  asking  an  explanation  from 
an  old  man,  who  then  gives  him  a  short  narrative  of  the  events. 
In  this  way  he  succeeds  in  producing  suspense  in  the  reader's  mind. 
In  his  tales  and  dramas,  Hans  Sachs  frequently  endeavours  to  con- 
nect action  with  motive  and  to  develop  character;  but  he  as  frequently 
neglects  this  altogether,  or  attempts  it  only  in  the  most  superficial 
manner.  He  does  not  go  so  far  as  summarily  to  dismiss  his  char- 
acters from  the  stage,  when  he  no  longer  requires  them  there,  but 
the  reasons  for  their  exit  are  often  very  insufficient.  He  divides 

his  comedies  and  tragedies  into  acts,  but  the  number 
His  dramas.     P  .         .  .  .  ,    .  .  .        .        , 

of  acts  is  quite  capricious,  and  the  division  is  often 

made  at  a  most  unfitting  place.  He  twice  dramatised  the  pretty 
story  of  Eve's  good  and  bad  children  being  examined  by  God  in  the 
doctrines  of  faith,  and  some  of  them  answering  badly  in  their  exa- 
mination. Each  version  has  its  special  merits,  but  in  the  second  the 
close  of  the  act  is  made  to  come  in  the  midst  of  the  examination, 
where  it  is  utterly  out  of  place.  With  regard  to  his  character- 
drawing,  it  is  in  treating  serious  subjects  that  Hans  Sachs  furnishes 
us  with  truly  individual  personalities,  for  then  he  draws  them  from 
his  own  experience.  He  represents  in  a  touching  manner  the 
banishment  of  Adam  and  Eve  from  Paradise,  and  effectually  enlists 
our  sympathies  on  the  side  of  our  first  parents,  whom  affliction 
only  binds  more  closely  together.  Specially  charming  is  his  de- 
scription of  Eve's  naive  fear  of  God,  whose  visits  alarm  her ;  or  of 
Adam  as  a  father,  instructing  his  boys  how  to  behave  before  the 
good  God,  how  to  take  off  their  caps,  to  bow  and  to  give  their 
hand.  In  Cain,  the  poet  has  given  us  an  excellent  picture  of  a 
naughty  boy.  The  impetuosity  and  imprudence  of  the  porter  of 
Heaven,  St.  Peter,  are  drawn  with  inimitable  humour  in  all  Sachs's 
farces  and  dramas.  Frequently  he  paints  not  individuals  but  types, 
like  the  masks  of  Italian  comedy  ;  in  this  he  was  influenced  by  the 
German  poetry  of  the  day,  whose  strength  lay  in  satirical  caricature. 
One  or  more  of  these  typical  figures  regularly  appear  in  every 
farce :  the  Catholic  priest  and  his  housekeeper,  the  cheating  land- 
lord, the  wicked  and  quarrelsome  old  dame,  the  sharp-witted  wan- 
derinj  scholar,  the  unfaithful  wife,  the  jealous  husband,  and  many 


The  Drama  from  1517  to  1620.  307 

others.  In  his  invention  of  dramatic  situations,  striking  speeches, 
and  comic  scenes,  as  in  his  creation  of  characters,  the  poet  has 
certain  fixed  moulds  at  his  disposal,  which  he  further  embellishes 
by  traits  drawn  from  his  own  observation. 

Hans  Sachs's  literary  activity  extended  from  1514  to  1569. 
According  to  his  own  reckoning  he  had  by  the  year  sachs's  great 
1567  written  4275  Master-songs,  208  dramas,- 1558  fertility  in 
comic  stories,  fables,  histories,  figures  (Figureri),  com-  "writing, 
parisons,  allegories,  dreams,  visions,  lamentations,  controversial 
dialogues  (Kampfgesprdche\  newspapers,  psalms  and  religious 
songs,  street  and  tavern  songs,  as  well  as  seven  prose  dialogues 
— in  all,  therefore,  6048  larger  or  smaller  works.  It  is  in  his 
farces  and  fables  that  he  best  satisfies  the  usual  requirements  of  art, 
less  in  his  carnival-plays,  and  still  less  in  his  other  dramas.  His 
first  tragedies,  '  Lucretia'  (1527)  and  'Virginia'  (1530),  dealt  with 
stories  of  Roman  liberty.  It  was  not  till  1533  that  he  turned  his 
attention  to  the  Scriptural  Drama,  and  not  till  1545  that  he  began 
dramatising  tragic  subjects  drawn  from  tales,  especially  from  Boc- 
caccio. The  period  of  his  greatest  dramatic  activity  falls  between 
1550  and  1560  ;  in  these  years  he  wrote  masses  of  plays,  seizing 
alike  on  scriptural,  classical,  or  romantic  subjects.  Sachs  repre- 
sents throughout  the  sketchy  style  of  drama ;  he  only  gives  slight 
outlines,  and  does  not  develop,  but  compresses. 

Hans  Sachs  died  in  1576  in  the  8ist  year  of  his  age.     Through 
his   influence   the  Niirnberg  school  of  dramatic  art  Hans  Sachs 
became  the  example  not  only  for  the  towns  in  the    died,  1570. 
immediate   neighbourhood,   but   also  for  Magdeburg,  Augsburg, 
Breslau,  and  Strassburg.      And  even  in  the  present  day  relics  of 
Hans  Sachs's  dramas  may  still  be  found  in  the  plays  acted  by  the 
German  peasants  of  Upper  Bavaria,  as  far  as  Hungary  and  Silesia. 
In  those  districts  they  have  lived  on,  like  popular  songs. 

A  short  time  after  Hans   Sachs   had  begun  to  cultivate  the 
Scriptural  drama,  and  about  the  time  when  the  Ger-      Dramag 
man  Bible  was  finished,  several  Biblical  dramas  and     produced 
dramas  written  with  a  fixed  purpose  were  produced  in  "*  Luther's 
Luther's  immediate  circle.    Joachim  Greff  wrote  seven       circ  e" 
or  more  such  plays,  none  of  which  show  anything  worthy  of  remark. 

X  2 


308  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  IX. 

Johann  Agricola  of  Eisleben,  the  collector  of  proverbs,  wrote  a 
tragedy  of  '  John  Huss.'  Paul  Rebhun  followed  Birk's  example, 
and  even  tried  to  outdo  him  in  efforts  to  improve  the  technique  and 
versification  of  the  drama,  dividing  his  pieces  into  five  acts,  and 
making  each  act  end  with  a  chorus.  His  endeavours  in  this 
Thomas  direction  were  continued  by  other  play-writers.  Lastly, 
Waogeorg's  there  -was  Thomas  Naogeorg,  who  ranks  highest  as 
Protestant  a  wrjter  of  dramas  with  a  Protestant  bias.  It  is  true, 
he  only  wrote  in  Latin,  but  his  plays  were  often 
translated,  and  he  found  an  excellent  German-writing  disciple  in 
Johannes  Chryseus.  Naogeorg  came  from  Bavaria,  and  was 
for  a  time  pastor  at  Kahla  in  Thuringia;  later  on,  a  disagree- 
ment arose  between  himself  and  Luther,  and  he  had  to  give  up 
his  living.  His  first  work,  published  in  1538,  represents  the 
Pope,  under  the  name  of  '  Pammachius,'  as  Antichrist  and  as 
an  ally  of  the  Devil.  The  second,  'Mercator'  (1540),  introduces 
us  to  a  dying  merchant,  who  can  find  no  relief  in  all  the  Roman 
Catholic  means  of  salvation,  but  to  whom  St.  Paul's  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith  at  length  brings  comfort  and  peace.  His 
third  work, '  Incendia '  (1541),  was  written  to  ridicule  Duke  Heinrich 
of  Brunswick,  against  whom  Luther  was  at  the  same  time  writing 
his  pamphlet  entitled  '  Wider  Hans  Worst.'  Naogeorg  also  made 
a  detailed  study  of  the  character  of  Haman  in  a  drama  directed 
against  bad  ministers,  hostile  to  the  Gospel  (1543);  he  depicted 
Jeremiah  in  his  conflict  with  idolatry  (1551),  and  branded  in  the 
person  of  Judas  Iscariot  all  traitors  to  the  Protestant  cause  (1552). 
Naogeorg's  nature  was  essentially  manly,  and  he  confined  his 
plays,  as  far  as  possible,  to  male  characters.  His  art  did  not 
improve,  but  rather  deteriorated  in  his  later  works.  He  worked 
hastily  and  superficially ;  his  plays  are  full  of  dramatic  defects,  and 
he  did  not  keep  the  requirements  of  the  real  stage  sufficiently  in 
view.  But  his  first  dramas  are  full  of  quite  Aristophanic  scenes,  and 
exhibit  a  mixture  of  the  terrible  and  the  grotesque,  which  cannot 
fail  to  exercise  a  powerful  influence  on  all  who  come  in  contact 
with  it.  His  disciple,  Chryseus,  in  his  '  Hofteufel" 
(1544),  chose  the  prophet  Daniel  as  his  hero,  but  filled 
the  play  with  allusions  to  contemporary  events  and  interests.  Daniel 


Ch.  ix.]  The  Drama  from   1517  to  1620.  309 

is  represented  as  the  ideal  of  a  Protestant  pastor,  and  the  idolatry 
which  he  scorns  is  called  '  thoroughly  Roman ; '  the  '  Court- Devil,' 
who  wishes  to  ruin  him,  is  a  venerable  priest  in  a  monk's  robe, 
and  his  allies  at  Court  are  some  of  them  Bishops  and  Cardinals. 

The  plays  which  arose  in  Luther's  immediate  circle  belong  to 
the  class  of  schoolplays  founded  on  Terentian  models.  This  kind 
of  drama  gradually  spread  itself  over  the  whole  of  North  Germany, 
and  acquired  fresh  vigour  from  its  competition  with  the  Jesuits. 
About  1540  we  find  writers  in  Berlin  making  efforts  in  the  direction 
of  original  literary  production ;  but  Prussia,  Pomerania,  Mecklen- 
berg,  Brunswick,  and  Westphalia  were  not  roused  to  activity  till  after 
the  conclusion  of  the  peace  of  Augsburg  (1555),  or  even  till  con- 
siderably later. 

The  chief  dramatist  of  this  later  epoch  was  again  a  South 
German,  Nicodemus  Frischlin  of  Tubingen,  who  Nicodemus 
wrote  classical  comedies,  mostly  in  Latin  ;  they  were  Frischlin. 
produced  between  the  years  1576  and  1585,  and  were  first  per- 
formed before  the  court  of  Stuttgart.  The  plots  are  feeble  and 
full  of  glaring  improbabilities.  The  comic  characters  alone  show 
any  attempt  at  character-drawing,  and  the  dialogue  is  disjointed 
and  lively  to  excess.  Still,  Frischlin  has  many  happy  ideas 
and  a  decided  comic  talent.  He  specially  delights  in  introducing 
the  slaves  and  swaggering  parasites  of  Roman  comedy.  In  his 
play  of '  Rebecca,'  he  turns  Ishmael  into  a  boisterous  youngster, 
whom  he  draws  to  the  life.  '  Susanna '  is  a  satire  directed  against 
lawyers  and  inn-keepers.  Another  of  his  plays  introduces  us  to 
life  and  ways  of  beggars  and  tramps.  In  one  play,  the  idea  of 
which  is  quite  original,  he  describes  the  tortures  which  the  Roman 
grammarian  Priscian  suffers  at  hearing  the  corrupt  mediaeval  Latin, 
and  takes  occasion  to  sing  the  praises  of  Melanchthon  as  a  philolo- 
gist. A  second  original  play  glorifies  Luther  and  the  Wiirtemberg 
Reformer,  Brenz,  while  Zwingli,  Karlstadt,  Schwenckfeld,  and  the 
whole  Council  of  Trent  are  represented  as  carried  off  by  the  Devil. 
And  in  a  third,  and  that  the  best  of  all,  he  represents  Caesar  and 
Cicero  as  coming  up  to  Germany  from  the  lower  world,  and  being 
filled  with  amazement  at  the  glory  of  the  German  nation,  with  its  gun- 
powder, its  art  of  printing,  its  Empire,  and  its  modern  Latin  poetry, 


T/ie  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  ix. 

while  they  are  confounded  at  the  condition  of  two  of  their  country- 
men, a  Savoyard  pedlar  and  an  Italian  chimney-sweep.  These 
plays  give  dramatic  expression  to  three  great  features  of  the  age : 
the  classical  Latin,  the  Lutheran  faith,  and  the  patriotic  rivalry  with 
the  Romance  races.  The  passion  and  bitterness  of  a  Naogeorg 
have  vanished  in  Frischlin ;  his  view  of  life  is  more  serene,  and 
his  poetry  rests  on  the  firm  basis  of  an  established  order  of  things. 
His  spirit  was  not  cramped  by  the  daily  conflict  of  a  new  idea 
gradually  and  with  difficulty  struggling  up  into  recognition. 

Frischlin's  plays  extend  almost  to  that  period  when  the  more 

highly  developed   dramatic    poetry  of  England  was   destined  to 

exercise    a   powerful    influence    on    the    German    Drama.     The 

German   actors   of   the   sixteenth   century,   whether   scholars   or 

students,  whether  Mastersingers  or  simple  bourgeois,  were  mere 

dilettanti.      In   England  an  art   of  acting   had   been   developed 

The         which  was  soon  to  learn  to  do  justice  even  to  the 

Stage  in      creations   of  a   Shakspeare.      The    predecessors   of 

England.     Shakspeare  already  possessed  some  measure  of  that 

art  in  which  Shakspeare  surpassed  them  all.     They  knew  how  to 

choose  powerful  subjects  for  their  plays  from  all  quarters.    As  soon 

as  the  German  book  of  'Faust'  appeared  in  1587,  Christopher 

Marlowe  converted  it  into  a  masterly  tragedy.     About  that  time 

English      some  English  players  entered  the  service  of  a  German 

players  in    prince,  and  shortly  after  1590  they  became  a  recog- 

Qermany.     njse(j  institution  at  two  of  the  German  courts.     Duke 

Heinrich  Julius  of  Brunswick  and  the  Landgrave  Maurice  of  Hesse 

each  kept  a  troop  of  English  players,  and  each  wrote  plays  for  their 

comedians.     The  Landgrave's  productions  have  been  lost,  but  the 

Duke's  are  still  extant.     These   players  must  soon  have  learnt 

German ;  they  used  to  make  long  tours  and  would  most  probably 

recruit  their  forces  from  native  talent.     Their  stage  was  no  longer 

that  of  the  popular  dramas  of  the  fifteenth  century,  which  had  hitherto 

been  retained  throughout  Germany,  but  resembled  in  principle  that 

of  our  modern  theatres.     It  consisted  of  a  raised  platform  as  the 

scene  of  action,  having  an  opening  in  the  floor  from  which  the 

Devils  and  Spirits  might  ascend.     This  stage  was  the  scene  of 

murders,   executions,  martyrdoms  and  sudden  deaths,  of  duels, 


Ch.  IX.]  The  Drama  from  1517  to  1620.  311 

battles,  and  conflagrations.  Gorgeous  processions  were  made  to 
pass  across  it,  guns  were  discharged  and  fireworks  let  off  with 
great  noise  and  smoke.  There  was  much  music  and  singing, 
trumpeting  and  drumming,  and  the  jests  and  pranks  of  the  clowns 
ran  through  all.  Great  realism  was  aimed  at  in  representation,  and 
no  efforts  were  spared  to  drive  the  audience  to  tears  and  laughter. 

Jacob  Ayrer  of  Niirnberg  was  a  decided  follower  of  the  English 
school,  and  grafted  the  English  dramatic  art  on  to  the 
style  of  Hans  Sachs.     His  sixty-nine  plays  consist  of      Ayrer's 
tragedies,  comedies,  carnival-plays  and  operatic- plays    sixty-nine 
(Singsptele),  the  latter  a  new  class  of  drama  introduced 
from  abroad.     But  his  productions  are  far  inferior  to 
those  of  Hans  Sachs.     He  revels  in  scenic  effects,  writes  in  uncouth 
rhymed  couplets,  and  in  his  plots  seldom  rises  above  a  mechanical 
level. 

Duke  Heinrich  Julius  showed  much  more  originality,  and  much 
more  discrimination  in  borrowing.     He  adopted  from 
the  English  dramas  their  prose-form  and  the  ever-        Duke 
present  clown,  although  the  latter  was  not  an  utterly     Heinrich 
unknown  character  in  earlier  German  plays.     The     Julius  of 
Duke's  play  of '  Susanna '  is  borrowed  from  Frischlin's     1593-94. ' 
drama  of  the  same  name ;  his  '  Vincentius  Ladislaus ' 
is  the  Capitano  of  Italian  farce,  the  loquacious,  bragging  and  lying, 
but  cowardly  soldier.     His   farces   are   simply  comic   tales  in   a 
dramatised  form.     It  is  only  in  his  tragedy  of  the  Prodigal  Son 
that  he  reminds  us  of  the  horrors  which  formed  so  favourite  an 
element  in  the  earlier  English  plays. 

Jacob  Ayrer's  dramas  were  produced  between  the  years  1595 
and  1605,  those  of  Duke  Julius  between  1593  and  1594.     About 
the  same  time,  important  advances  were  also  made  in  the  older 
forms  of  drama.     After  the  year  1570,  several  transla-     improve- 
tions  were  made  of  the  Scotch  poet  Buchanan's  two     ments  in 
biblical  dramas;   these  set  the  example  of  treating 
sacred  subjects  in  the  severer  style  of  classical  tragedy,    beginning 
especially  in   the   manner  of  Seneca.     About  1600    of  the  17th. 
Buchanan's  example  began  to  be  followed  by  poets  of  lUry' 

central  Germany  and  of  the  Upper  Rhine,  who  in  their  Latin  plays, 


3i a  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [ch.  IX. 

if  not  in  their  German,  observed  the  unities  of  time  and  place. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  find  that  at  the  annual  theatrical  re- 
presentations given  by  the  Strassburg  Academy-Theatre,  which 
obtained  great  renown  between  the  years  1597  and  1617,  the 
ancient  dramas  were  produced  together  with  entirely  modern  pieces. 
Plays  of  .SJschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Aristophanes,  and 
Plautus  were  acted  together  with  those  of  Naogeorg  and  Frischlin. 
One  dramatist  even  had  the  audacity  to  modernise  the  '  Ajax '  of 
Sophocles,  and  to  represent  things  on  the  stage,  which  in  the 
Greek  play  are  only  reported.  A  number  of  new  dramas  were  also 
put  on  the  stage,  the  most  remarkable  being  a  play  on  '  Saul '  by 
an  unknown  writer,  and  the  works  of  Kaspar  Briilow  of  Strassburg. 
Tnese  dramas  all  show  an  improvement  in  style,  a  greater  mastery 
of  the  means  of  dramatic  effect,  and  a  more  intricate  plot.  In 
Pomerania,  Briilow's  native  province,  and  in  Mecklenburg  the 
German  and  Latin  drama  flourished  about  the  beginning  of  the 
1 7th  century.  Whilst  the  earlier  German  drama,  even  down  to 
Frischlin's  time,  had  always  inclined  to  comedy,  we  now,  on  the 
contrary,  find  tragedy  more  and  more  gaining  the  preponderance. 
The  comic  element  was  not,  however  entirely  banished,  for  farcical 
episodes  were  countenanced  in  tragedies ;  for  instance,  peasants 
were  introduced,  speaking  their  own  uncouth  dialect.  The  comic 
interludes  were  now  made  into  regular  underplots ;  thus,  side  by 
side  with  the  marriage  of  Isaac  and  Rebecca  the  dramatist  would 
introduce  a  story  of  rustic  married  life,  drawn  with  great  fidelity  to 
Choice  of  nature.  A  change  also  took  place  in  the  choice  of 
subjects  subjects ;  secular  subjects  came  more  into  favour,  and 
e  '  ancient  myths  and  Roman,  mediaeval,  and  modern 
stories  were  dramatised.  A  number  of  types  of  character  were  now 
more  fully  developed,  such  as  parasites,  braggarts,  soldiers,  peasants, 
and  witches.  The  interest  then  taken  in  medicine  and  psychology  led 
to  the  representation  of  various  temperaments,  for  instance,  that  of  the 
melancholy  man.  Love,  madness,  and  overweening  pride  were  re- 
peatedly depicted ;  and  though  in  the  conception  of  love  finer  senti- 
ment was  still  wanting,  this  was  in  some  degree  made  up  for  by 
the  introduction  of  touching  scenes  of  child-life.  Maxims  of  some- 
what trivial  wisdom  still  continued  to  adorn  the  dialogue.  In  the 


Ch.  ix.]  The  Drama  from  1517  to   1620.  313 

construction  of  the  play  the  excitement  was  enhanced  by  retarding 
the  climax,  and  more  unity  was  introduced  into  the  plot  even  where 
the  strictly  classical  form  was  rejected.     Though  all      Qenerai 
this  applies  more  immediately  to  the  Latin  dramas,  yet     improve- 

the  change  in  these  exercised  its  influence  on  Ger-      ment  in 

i  i  A  11     u       i  r  i  •  ^  composition, 

man  plays  also.     All  the  elements  for  making  a  great 

dramatist  existed  at  that  time  in  Germany ;  it  was  only  necessary 
for  these  various  elements  to  be  united  and  brought  to  bear  on  each 
other.  And,  in  fact,  this  process  was  actually  going  on.  In  Strass- 
burg  there  existed,  beside  the  Academy-theatre,  a  play-house  of 
Mastersingers ;  Wolfhart  Spangenberg,  who  furnished  this  German 
play-house  with  pieces  of  a  strongly  moralising  tendency,  at  the  same 
time  wrote  many  of  the  German  text-books  which  were  supplied  as 
aids  to  the  unlearned  among  the  audience  of  the  Academy-theatre. 
The  transition  would  seem  easy  from  this  to  the  writing  of  German 
tragedies  in  the  style  of  Briilow  and  of  the  modernised  version  of 
Sophocles  mentioned  above.  In  the  neighbourhood  of  Brunswick 
we  find  a  writer  of  school-plays,  Johann  Bertesius  by  name,  who 
shows  great  skill  in  the  construction  of  German  rhymed  couplets, 
writing  them  in  the  form  employed  by  Paul  Rebhun  and  quite 
coming  up  to  his  level.  We  do  not  know  whether  this  play-writer 
succeeded  in  attracting  more  than  the  passing  notice  of  Duke  Hein- 
rich  Julius  of  Brunswick.  At  Cassel  circumstances  The  theatre 
were  most  favourable  for  the  development  of  the  at  Cassel- 
drama.  The  Landgrave  Maurice  built  a  theatre  of  his  own,  the  first 
Court-theatre  in  Germany.  He  chose  the  actors  for  his  play  at  first 
from  among  the  pupils  of  the  court-school  (Hof-  und  Ritterschule\ 
which  he  himself  had  founded;  later  on  he  employed  English 
comedians.  The  school-boys  had  acted  classical  plays,  amongst 
others  the  '  Antigone.'  With  the  advent  of  the  English  comedians 
translations  and  imitations  of  English  plays  were  added  to  the  r£- 
pertoire,  and  thus  it  came  to  pass  that  even  the  external  form  which 
Shakspeare  made  use  of,  namely  the  alternation  of  prose  and  blank 
verse,  was  transplanted  to  German  soil.  However  German  the 
English  comedians  may  have  become,  they  did  not  entirely  give  up 
their  connection  with  England.  They  brought  Marlowe's 'Faustus' 
to  Germany  and  several  of  Shakspeare's  plays,  amongst  others 


314  The  Reformation  and  ttie  Renaissance.       [ch.  IX. 

'  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  '  Hamlet,' '  Lear,'  and  '  Julius  Csesar.'     They 

_    .  also  appropriated  many  features  of  the  native  German 

of  English    dramatic  art.     The  collection  of  English  comedies  in 

Comedies,    German   published   in    the   year   1620   offers   many 

py    "  Q       examples  of  lively  and  truly  dramatic  prose-dialogue, 

sounding  like  an  anticipation  of  Goethe's  '  Gotz  von 

Berlichingen.' 

But  the  English  comedians  could  not  found  a  truly  great  Ger- 
man school  of  drama.     They  merely  provided  for  their  repertoire 
whatever  they  thought  would  best  amuse  their  audiences  on  their 
professional  journeys.     No  creative  poet  arose,  who,  while  learn- 
ing from  the  English  players,  as  Duke  Heinrich  Julius  had  done, 
should  at  the  same  time  unite  and  develop  in  himself  all  the  re- 
sources of  the  German  drama,  and  become  a  rival  of  Shakspeare. 
_      ,rh.p+     The  development  of  the  drama,  which  had  begun  in 
Years'  "War  so  many  different  quarters,  was  interrupted  at  its  most 
stops  all     promising  stage.     All  the  hopes  cherished  with  regard 
develop-     tQ  ^  Qerman  drama  were  wrecked  by  the  Thirty 
ment. 

Years'  War,  and  also  by  the  want  of  a  capital  town 

with  an  appreciative  artistic  audience.  Germany  had  no  capital  to 
attract  every  great  talent  to  itself  and  render  the  stage  independent 
of  the  favour  of  single  princes. 

THE  THIRTY  YEARS'  WAR. 

It  was  not  only  the  drama  that  made  important  advances  in  the 
General      first  decades  preceding  the  Thirty  Years'  War ;  there 
progress  in  were  sjgns  of  progress  in  knowledge  and  taste  at  that 
literature  ,,    .  ,. ,.  T  i  TT-      i 

immediately  lime  in  a  '  t"e  Provinces  01  literature.     Johann  Kepler 
before  the    began  to  publish  his  important  astronomical  works  in 
war-        the  year  1596,  writing  in  an  extremely  clever  and 
Kepler.      lively  Latin  style.     His  Swabian  countryman,  Valen- 
tine Andrea,  ridiculed  the  perversities  of  the  age  in  correct  Latin 
Valentine    dialogues   and   parables,  and   also  wrote   some   ex- 
Andrea,      cellent  German   poems,  and   some  small   romances 
partly  in  German  and  partly  in  Latin  prose.     In  one  of  these 
romances  he  draws  a   picture   of  an   ideal  Christian  state,  and 
also   gives    a    scheme    for    an    Academy   of   Natural    Science. 


Ch.  ix.]  The  Thirty  Years'  War.  315 

Another  furnished  the  suggestion  for  the  mysterious  society  of 
the  Rosicrucians,  which  soon  put  all  Europe  in  a  state  of  excite- 
ment.    Johann  Arndt  of  Ballenstadt  wrote  some  ex-       j0hann 
cellent  popular  devotional  works,  remarkable  for  their     Arndt  and 
clearness  and  elegance,  and  for  the  noble  and  tolerant         Jacob 
spirit  which  animates  them.     They  are  entitled  '  Das 
wahre  Christenthum,'  1605-1610,  and  'Das  Paradies-G'artlein  voll 
christlicher  Tugenden,'  1612.     Jacob  Bohme  began  his   theoso- 
phical  writings  in  1610.     In  scholastic  theology  we     Theology, 
find  short  moral  reflections  asserting  themselves  side  philosophy, 
by  side  with  interminable  dogmatic  teaching.     Philo-  c' 

sophy  strove  after  a  standpoint  above  the  strife  of  religious  parties ; 
political  science  found  excellent  representatives  and  philologists, 
literary  historians,  historical  students,  and  geographers  were  begin- 
ning to  display  extraordinary  activity. 

A  German  dictionary  was  begun,  and  already  the  interest  of  a 
few  scholars  was  being  attracted  towards  Middle  High-German 
poetry.  In  the  realm  of  secular  poetry,  the  social 
song,  at  once  international  and  popular  in  character, 
was  flourishing,  and  Church-hymns  were  beginning  to  take  a 
gentler  and  more  individual  tone.  Prose  style  was  becoming  de- 
cidedly more  flexible,  and  in  many  writers  was  no  longer  disfigured 
by  foreign  words  and  phrases ;  still  we  must  acknowledge  that 
now,  as  in  the  eleventh  century,  the  mixture  of  languages  was  one 
of  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  literature,  reflecting  the  strong 
influence  exercised  on  it  from  foreign  sources. 

In  the  years  1600  to  1617  there  was  an  extraordinary  increase 
in  the  German  book-trade,  which  even  the  war  did     increase 
not  succeed  in  checking  at  once.     It  was   not  till       m  the 
about  1632  that  the  trade  began  decidedly  to  decline,   book  trade, 
In  these  first  decades  of  the  seventeenth  century,  a 
large  amount   of  foreign  poetry  was   brought  into  the  German 

market.  Translators  were  very  active.    Spanish  works 

Translations, 
were  imported  via  Munich,  French  productions  via 

Mompelgard  and  Strassburg ;  the  latter  consisted  mostly  of  ro- 
mances like  '  Amadis  of  Gaul,'  which  found  an  audience  in  aristo- 
cratic circles,  and  were  many  of  them  translated  by  noblemen. 


3 1 6  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  IX. 

The  pastoral  romances  were   already  beginning   to  appear,  and 
Pastoral      were  destined  to  cause  a  transformation  in  the  con- 
romances,     versation  of  the  cultivated  classes,  and  to  force  even 
love-poetry  into  a  pastoral  costume.     Catholic  Germany  entered 
into  sympathy  with  the  culture  of  the  South ;  the  Calvinists  con- 
tinued to  adhere  to  Dutch  and  French  models ;   the  Lutherans 
alone  remained  for  the  most  part  faithful  to  what  was  distinctively 
German.     The  aristocracy  as  a  whole  was  now  becoming  more 
cultivated  and  refined  through  travelling ;  the  German  nobles  were 
Increased    beginning  to  follow  the  example  of  the  aristocracy  in 
interest  in    other  countries,  and  once  more  to  honour  their  native 
German      literature  and  language  by  their  active  sympathy.     In 
the  German  Renaissance  movement  before  the  Re- 
formation we  noticed  nobles  and  scholars  working  in  common, 
and  this  seemed  now  to  be  repeated.     Then  we  saw  Germans 
striving  to  equal  the  Italians  in  classical  learning,  and  to  secure 
the  general  recognition  of  German  merits  and  German  titles  to 
fame.     The  same  patriotic  pride  meets  us  also  after  the  Reforma- 
tion, only  its  sphere  is  extended  from  Latin  to  national  literature. 
South- West  Germany  now  as  then  took  the  lead  in  the  intellectual 
Weckherlin  movement.     At  the  court  of  Stuttgart  about  1617,  we 
at  find  Rudolf  Weckherlin  writing  elegant  drinking-songs 

1   gar  '     and  love-songs,  and  describing  the  glories  of  the  ducal 
festivities,  just  as  Nicodemus  Frischlin  had  done  some  years  before 
in   Latin.      In  Heidelberg  we  find   Julius  Wilhelm 
and  the      Zincgref  following  in  the  steps  of  Paul  Melissus  and 
Heidelberg  mentioning  Fischart's  name  with  reverence.     In  his 

poetic       poems  Zincgref  sometimes   copied   foreign   models, 
circle. 

and  sometimes  adopted  the  popular  tone;    later  on 

he  made  an  attractive  collection  of  the  '  wisely  uttered  wisdom  of 
the  German  nation.'  Other  young  men  with  the  same  aims  and 
ambitions  gathered  round  him.  In  the  summer  of  1619  Martin 
Opitz  joined  the  circle;  he  was  then  only  twenty-one,  but  had 
already  in  a  Latin  pamphlet  written  two  years  before  recommended 
German  poetry  to  the  attention  of  scholars,  and  announced  himself 
as  its  reviver.  Through  him  East  Germany  was  drawn  into  the 
movement.  About  the  same  time  too,  we  find  sympathy  for  the 


Ch.  ix.]  The  Thirty   Years'   War.  317 

native  language  and  native  poetry  beginning  to  stir  in  central  Ger- 
many.     On  the  24th  of  August  1617,  the    'Fruit-  «fphe Fruit- 
bringing  Society/  as  it  was  termed,  was  founded  in     bringing 
Weimar.     It  was  an  imitation  of  the  Italian  Acade-    Society'  at 
mies,  especially  of  the    Florentine  'Academy  della 
Crusca'  ('Crusca'= chaff).     The  German  society  borrowed  from 
the  Italian  one  the  idea  of  purifying  the  mother-tongue  from  the 
'chaff'  of  foreign  words  or  dialect  expressions,  and  the  example  of  the 
Delia  Cruscans  was  also  rigidly  followed  in  all  the  rules  of  the  society, 
in  the  badges  worn  by  its  members  and  the  names  adopted  by  them. 
The   '  Fruit-bringing    Society '   included    princes,    nobles,  and 
scholars,  without  reference  to  their  religious  beliefs,  and  the  Cal- 
vinistic  Prince  Ludwig  of  Anhalt,  who  was  their  President  for 
many  years,  deprecated  every  attempt  to  confine  it  to  the  aristo- 
cracy, and  expressly  declared  that  scholars  were  also  noble  '  by 
virtue  of  the  liberal  arts.'     In  assuming  this  attitude  the  society 
rightly  pointed  out  the  only  basis  on  which  a  new  German  litera- 
ture could  prosper.     By  making  it  one  of  the  duties 

1  ,    Beflnement 

of  its  members  to  express  themselves  moderately  and          of 

courteously,  and  to  abstain  from  unseemly  speech  and    literature, 

abusive  ridicule,  it  helped  to  banish  the  coarse  ten-  tlirough  lts 

efforts, 
dencies  of  the  sixteenth  century.     It  discouraged  the 

use  of  foreign  words  among  its  members,  and  set  up  a  standard  of 
pure  German  which  future  writers  endeavoured  to  come  up  to. 
It  also  aimed  at  improving  versification;  it  sought  to  reduce 
grammar,  dictionary,  and  prosody  to  rules,  and  it  encouraged  good 
literary  work.  By  all  these  various  efforts  the  '  Fruit-bringing  So- 
ciety' helped  to  lay  the  necessary  foundations  of  modern  German 
literature. 

But  all  this  progress  which  we  have  noticed  was  checked  by  the 
Thirty  Years'  War.     The  Heidelberg  circle  of  poets    Fatal  effect 
was  scattered  as  early  as  1620  by  the  Spanish  troops ;        of  the 
the  '  Fruit-bringing  Society'  had  to  pursue  its  aims       Thirty 
under  great  external  difficulties.     The  Thirty  Years'   ' 
War  was  a  fatality  not  only  to  the  drama,  but  to  all  the  other 
branches  of  literature,  and  to  all  intellectual  progress  generally  in 
Germany.     The   fact   that  the  literary  life  of  Germany  did  not 


318  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [ch.  ix. 

quite  succumb  under  it  is  a  proof  of  the  vigour  which  it  had 
already  acquired.  German  literature  after  1618  is  not  a  new  de- 
parture, but  the  meagre  continuance  of  the  movement  which  had 
begun  before  the  war  and  was  checked  by  it.  The  union  of 
popular,  classical,  and  modern  elements  of  culture  which  seemed 
to  be  imminent  in  the  drama  and  in  lyric  poetry,  never  came  to 
pass.  The  popular  style  which  had  enjoyed  such  complete  supre- 
macy in  literature  since  the  fourteenth  century,  now  had  to  give 
way;  Church-hymns  alone  remained  faithful  to  this  style,  and 
though  lyric  and  dramatic  poets  still  occasionally  returned  to  it, 
yet  generally  speaking  we  may  say  that  they  now  struck  out  in 
other  directions. 

The  scholar-poets  now  set  the  standard  in  literature,  and  they 
Scholar-  despised  the  national  German  poetry  instead  of  im- 
poets.  proving  it.  They  founded  a  class  of  poetry  meant 
for  scholars  and  men  of  refined  culture.  They  continued  in  Ger- 
man the  style  which  they  had  hitherto  pursued  in  Latin.  As  they 
were  accustomed  to  acquire  the  art  of  Latin  verse  from  books,  so 
they  now  wrote  manuals  to  teach  the  art  of  German  poetry.  But 
in  this  schism  with  the  national  poetry  these  writers  lost  their  in- 
dependence, and  translation  and  imitation  remained  their  highest 
art.  They  introduced  foreign  styles  of  poetry  and  foreign  metres, 
and  allowed  themselves  to  be  carried  away  into  foolish  and  inar- 
tistic tricks  of  writing.  For  the  most  part  it  was  only  lyric  and 
didactic  poetry  that  they  cultivated  with  any  perseverance.  The 
eulogy  (Lobgedichf),  a  feeble  copy  of  the  classical  hymn,  became 
the  most  favourite  form  of  writing,  appearing  in  various  guises, 
chiefly  as  complimentary  verses  on  special  occasions,  such  as  births, 
marriages,  or  deaths.  This  low  order  of  occasional  poetry  was 
further  promoted  by  the  system  of  literary  patronage  and  by  the 
fashion  of  mutual  eulogies  among  scholars;  great  scholars  now 
begged  for  recognition  and  reward  just  like  the  despised  gleemen 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  Only  in  two  directions  were  the  hopes  raised 
by  the  period  before  the  war  fulfilled,  namely  in  the  purification 
of  metrical  construction  and  in  the  adoption  of  what  is  generally 
called  the  Renaissance  style  in  poetry. 

The  verses  of  the  sixteenth  century,  which  simply  counted  the 


Ch.  ix.]  The  Thirty  Years    War.  319 

number  of  syllables,  and  in  which  the  metrical  accent  might  there- 
fore fall  on  an  unaccented  syllable,  now  disappeared.     improve- 
Though  the  poets  of  this  period  did  not  at  once      ment  in 
return  to  the  beautiful  freedom  of  metre  which  char-  ver 
acterized  the  poetry  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  yet  their 
versification  now  followed  rules  calculated  to  produce  a  similar  re- 
result.     The  rhymed  couplets,  which  formerly  enjoyed  such  popu- 
larity, were  now  despised  as  doggrel,  and  were  abandoned  without 
any  attempt  at  improving  them.     Their  place  was  taken  by  the  far 
more  monotonous  Alexandrine,  the  favourite  metre  of  French  and 
Dutch  poetry,  which  by  its  peculiar  construction  naturally  resulted 
in  constant  enumerations  and  antitheses.     The  reign  of  the  Alex- 
andrine is  contemporary  with  the  most  unfruitful  period  of  modern 
German  poetry,  i.e.  the  time  before  Klopstock  and  Lessing. 

The  merit  of  having  carried  out  the  reform  of  German  versi- 
fication must  chiefly  be  attributed  to  the  versatile  and       Martin 

talented  Silesian  poet,  Martin  Opitz.     His  'Buch  von    ._  pl  zs 

*  '  Buch  von 

der  deutschen  Poeterey,    which  appeared   in   1624,  der deutschen 

became  the  chief  authority  on  the  art  of  poetry  in  the  Poeterey.' 
period  immediately  following  its  publication.  It  not  only  contained 
precepts  and  hints  on  versification,  but  also  on  composition  and 
style  in  general,  supported  by  the  author's  own  practice.  Opitz 
wished  to  make  German  poetry  more  rich  and  varied  and  at  the 
same  time  more  regular.  He  tried  to  separate  poetic  style  from 
prose-style  and  to  raise  poetry  above  the  level  of  colloquial  speech. 
He  endeavoured  to  introduce  into  German  poetry  something  of  that 
beauty  of  form  which  he  observed  in  the  classical  writers.  He 
wished  to  establish  a  definite  style  for  each  class  of  poetry.  In 
comedy  and  in  the  idyll,  he  says,  the  style  may  .be  homely  and 
simple,  but  in  tragedy  and  in  the  epic,  in  the  ode  and  the  didactic 
poem  stately  language  is  required  to  suit  the  subject. 

These  and  many  other  of  Opitz's  views  are  derived,  either  directly 
or  indirectly,  from  Julius  Caesar  Scaliger,  whose  Art  of        Qpitz 
Poetry,  published  three  years  after  his  death,  in  1561,     borrowed 
was  considered  by  the  scholars  of  the  age  to  embody 
the  highest  theoretic  wisdom  on  the  subject.     In  this 
work  garbled  maxims  of  Horace  are  mixed  with  rules  of  classical 


320  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance,       [Ch.  IX. 

rhetoric,  criticisms  on  ancient  and  modern  poets,  observations  on 
borrowed  poetical  ideas,  and  parallel  extracts  showing  the  treat- 
ment of  the  same  subjects  by  various  authors.  The  whole  affords 
us  a  thorough  insight  into  the  art  of  poetry  as  first  practised  by  the 
Renaissance-scholars  in  Latin,  and  then  transferred  to  the  vulgar 
tongue  by  poets  of  classical  education.  Writers  were  now  authori- 
tatively referred  to  the  classics,  just  as  Horace  had  enjoined  on  his 
Roman  colleagues  the  duty  of  reading  the  Greek  masterpieces  by 

day  and  night.  Among  the  mediaeval  poets,  the 
._  '8  .  scholarly  Petrarch  alone  was  recognised  as  worthy  of 
the  classics,  the  name.  Fora  long  period  the  influence  of  classical 
in  France,  antiquity  had  been  confined  to  the  subject-matter  of 

wor^s  >    now>    writers   aimed   also   at   imitating   the 

classical  perfection  of  form.  Translations  had  hitherto 
been  unwittingly  somewhat  of  parodies,  but  now  words,  syntax,  and 
figures  of  speech  were  to  be  closely  copied.  This  close  imitation 
of  the  classics  produced  the  Renaissance  style  of  poetry.  The 
movement  in  favour  of  the  classical  writers  began  in  France  with 
Ronsard,  and  his  example  was  followed  in  Holland  by  the  cele- 
brated philologist  Daniel  Heinsius.  Ronsard  and  Heinsius  were 
Opitz's  much  admired  models.  Opitz  was,  however,  not  the  first 
to  introduce  the  Renaissance  style  into  Germany;  he  had  been 
anticipated  in  this  by  a  man  of  greater  talent  than  himself,  the 
Swabian  Weckherlin,  who  was  thirteen  years  older  than  the  Silesian 

poet.     Weckherlin  had  lived  many  years  in  France 

introduced  anc*  England,  and  had  studied  the  Renaissance-poetry 

the          of  those  two  countries  before  appearing  as  an  author 

Benaissance-  m   njs   own   native  land.     His  fame,  however,  was 

Germany     ecnPse^  ty  l^at  °f  Opitz.     Weckherlin  adhered  in  his 

versification  to  the  counting  of  syllables,  and  did  not, 
like  his  ambitious  rival,  strive  to  gain  a  reputation  by  forcing  him- 
self into  the  acquaintance  of  German  and  foreign  scholars.  From 
about  1620  till  his  death  Weckherlin  lived  in  England.  His 
political  poems,  written  in  praise  of  the  Protestant  generals  of 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  did  not  appear  in  print  till  after  1640. 
Hence  it  happened  that  it  was  Opitz's  name,  rather  than  his, 
which  became  associated  in  Germany  with  the  improvement  of 


Ch.  IX.]  The  Thirty   Years     War.  321 

versification,  the  creation  of  a  new  literary  style,  and,  as  it  seemed, 
the  inauguration  of  a  new  literary  epoch. 

No  writer  has  acquired  an  important  place  in  the  history  of 
literature  with  so  little  title  to  it  as  Opitz.  He  was  Martin 
born  in  1597,  and  when  he  died  in  1639,  in  the  full  Opitz, 
vigour  of  manhood,  his  zeal  for  poetry  had  long  1597-1639. 
cooled  down,  the  fame  of  learning  having  proved  more  attractive 
to  him.  His  talent  was  best  suited  for  the  lighter  forms  of  poetry. 
He  was  well  fitted  to  raise  the  social  song  to  a  higher  level,  and  to 
write  easy,  flowing  verses  on  spring  and  love,  moonshine  and  the 
song  of  birds.  In  this  style  he  produced  a  few  really  excellent 
poems,  some  original  and  some  borrowed.  He  also  succeeded  fairly 
well  in  sacred  hymns,  some  of  his  being  incorporated  in  the  Church 
hymn-books.  But  his  spirit  aspired  to  higher  things  than  these; 
he  tried  to  make  himself  artificially  what  he  was  not  in  reality,  and 
hence  his  more  pretentious  works  are  worthy  of  little  praise.  In  the 
drama  and  the  novel  he  never  got  beyond  translation.  His  tire- 
some '  Hercynia,'  a  prose  idyll  with  verses  occasionally  introduced, 
was  really  intended  as  mere  flattery.  Like  Fischart,  he  imitated 
Horace  in  singing  the  praises  of  rural  life,  but  he  overloaded  his 
work  with  details.  His  mournful  contemplation  of  nature  is  carried 
to  exaggeration,  though  there  seems  an  undertone  of  true  feeling 
in  it.  His  descriptions  in  verse  often  sink  to  the  level  of  prose, 
and  only  differ  from  the  didactic  rhymings  of  Hans  Sachs  in  the 
Alexandrine  metre,  the  introduction  of  a  few  Renaissance  flourishes 
here  and  there,  and  the  absence  of  all  pleasing  naivete.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  his  hymn  on  Christ's  birth,  and  of  his  praise  of 
Mars.  His  poems  of  consolation  in  time  of  war  give  us  a  lurid 
picture  of  the  horrors  which  had  broken  over  Germany,  and 
contain  some  strong  words  against  religious  intolerance  ;  but  they 
too  are  spoilt  by  endless  moralisings,  in  which  the  commonplace 
nature  of  the  poet  is  fully  revealed.  Still,  however  low  may  be  our 
estimate  of  Opitz's  more  ambitious  works,  they  satisfied  the  taste  of 
his  contemporaries,  and  even  in  the  last  century,  before  the  age  of 
Frederick  the  Great  had  caused  poetry  to  take  a  higher  flight,  men 
still  looked  up  to  him  with  admiration. 

Opitz's  fame  spread  rapidly  in  the  years  of  the  war,  and  his 


323  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  ix. 

Silesian  countrymen  diffused  his  views  all  over  Germany.     In  the 
School  of    University  of  Wittenberg  August  Buchner,  though  re- 
Opitz.       taining  his  independence  in  details,  yet  helped  on  the 
whole  to  spread  the  Opitzian  taste.  In  Leipzig  Paul  Fleming  became 
Paul         his  enthusiastic  admirer.    Fleming  had  the  advantage 
Fleming,     over  his  master  in  this,  that  he  really  possessed  a 
slight  amount  of  genius,  and  also  had  the  benefit  of  one  great 
experience  in  his  life,  i.e.  a  journey  to  Persia;   but  he  died  in 
his  thirty-first  year  in   1640,  and  it  was  not  till   1646  that  his 
collected  poems  were  published  by  a  friend.     They  are  not  free 
from  barren  passages,  highflown  mythology,  piled  up  maxims,  far- 
fetched wit,  and  all  kinds  of  artificialities ;  but  side  by  side  with  all 
this  we  find  true  feeling,  epigrammatic  conciseness  and  melodious 
and  animated  verses.      Fleming's   poetry  gives   us  the  personal 
experiences  of  a  happy  and  upright  man.     He  wrote  interesting 
occasional  poems,  told  the  sighs  and  rejoicings  of  love,  and  above 
all  composed  sacred  hymns,  such  as  the  traveller's 
song :  '  In  alien  meinen  Thaten  Lass  ich  den  Hoch- 
sten  rathen/  and  the  manly  and  brave  poem :  '  Lass  dich  nur 
nichts  nicht  dauren.'     But  the  world  of  spiritual  experience  still 
remained  a  closed  mystery  to  the  poets  of  this  period.     They  only 
approached  it  by  the  circuitous  paths  of  wit  and  wisdom. 

In  Konigsberg  Simon  Dach   became  the  centre  of  a   poetic 
Simon  Dach  society  which  followed  Opitz,  and  wrote  hymns  as 
in          well  as  social  songs.     It  was  for  this  circle  of  friends 
Konigsberg.  that  Dach  wrote  the  poem  beginning  : 

'Der  Mensch  hat  nichts  so  eigen, 

So  wohl  steht  ihm  nichts  an 
Als  dass  er  Treu  erzeigen, 

Und  Freundschaft  halten  kann.' 

He  was  the  author  of '  Aennchen  von  Tharau,'  a  song  now  sung 
all  over  Germany,  and  which  was  originally  written  in  Low  German 
as  a  marriage-song.  Dach's  poems  have  the  same  smoothness  and 
ease  as  Fleming's,  the  same  fluency,  sometimes  all  too  great.  In 
his  religious  songs  he  is  fond  of  contemplating  death  ;  he  does  not 
however  paint  it  in  glaring  colours,  but  only  in  slight  outlines,  and 
it  is  not  fear  that  inspires  him,  but  a  quiet  melancholy,  which  loves 


Ch.  ix.]  The   Thirty    Years    War,  323 

to  gaze  into  the  beyond.     Dach  died  in  1659  at  the  age  of  fifty- 
four. 

German  taste  was  not  everywhere  subject  to  Opitz.  In  the 
South  and  North  it  struck  out  in  other  directions,  which  found 
their  expression  in  other  literary  societies.  These  were  formed 
after  the  model  of  the  Fruit-bringing-Society,  but  were  either  in 
direct  opposition  to  it,  or  at  least  asserted  their  independence 
of  it. 

The  '  Upright  society  of  the  Pine-tree '  had  been  founded  in 
Strassburg  in  the  year  1633 ;  it  played  off  Weckherlin 
against  Opitz,  and  was  to  a  certain  extent  a  con-       ofthe 
tinuation  of  that  South- West  German  circle  of  poets,    Pine-tree ' 

with  which  Opitz  had  at  an  earlier  period  come  in     m  strass- 

burg,  1633. 
contact  at  Heidelberg. 

In  1644  the  poets  of  Niirnberg  formed  their  '  Society  of  the 

Pegnitz  shepherds,  or  the  crowned  Flower-Order  on  _ 

The  'Pegnitz 
the  Pegnitz.'     Its  most  distinguished  members,  Hars-    shepherds' 

dorfer,  Klaj,  and  Birken  threw  themselves  with  special  in  Niirnberg, 
enthusiasm  into  the  pastoral  fancy.     The  florid  Re- 
naissance style  became  with  them  mere  bombast  and  wordiness, 
and  we  find  them  following  Italian  models,  in  opposition  to  the 
French  and  Dutch  taste  to  which  Opitz  paid  homage. 

Thus  Strassburg  and  Niirnberg  once  more  proved  true  to  their 
ancient  literary  reputation,  and  produced  the  last  followers  of 
Sebastian  Brand,  Murner,  Fischart,  and  Spangenberg  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  Rosenbliit,  Folz,  Hans  Sachs,  and  Jacob  Ayrer  on 

the  other.     But  new  circumstances  now  contributed 

Hamburg 

to  make  Hamburg  and  its  neighbourhood  an  impor-    becomes  a 
tant  centre  of  learning  and  poetry.     The  North-Sea      literary 
towns,  Hamburg  and  Bremen,  succeeded  in  preserv-       cen  re' 
ing  a  prudent  neutrality  during  the  war,  and  thus  developed  great 
prosperity  in  the  midst  of  the  general  misery.     While  German 
trade  was  everywhere  else  falling  into  decay,  and  England  and 
Holland  were  enormously  increasing  in  power  and  importance, 
these  two  towns  were  engaged  in  conveying  foreign  wares  into 
the  interior  of  Germany,  and  thus  profited  by  the  prosperity  of 
the  English  and  Dutch.    But  while  Calvinistic  Bremen  played  but 

Y  2 


324  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [Ch.  IX. 

little  part  in  German  literature,  Lutheran  Hamburg  on  the  contrary 
developed,  side  by  side  with  great  material  prosperity,  a  highly 
active  intellectual  life.  There  Joachim  Jungius  taught  and  Bal- 
thasar  Schuppius  preached,  and  it  was  also  the  home  of  many 
other  distinguished  scholars.  Opitzians  and  independent  poets 
here  met  together,  and  each  party  sought  to  increase  its  im- 
portance by  starting  a  poetical  society  of  its  own.  The  minister 
Johann  Rist  was  established  at  Wedel  on  the  Elbe  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Hamburg,  and  in  Hamburg  itself  Philip  von  Zesen 
went  to  rest,  after  a  chequered  and  wandering  life.  Rist  came 
from  Ottensen  near  Altona;  he  was  born  in  1607,  and  died  in 
1667.  Zesen,  who  came  from  Central  Germany,  lived  from 
1619  to  1689.  Rist  first  made  his  appearance  as  an  author  in 
1634,  Zesen  in  1638.  Rist  founded  the  'Order  of  the  Elbe 
Swans'  (Elbschivanenorderi)  in  1658;  Zesen  was  from  1643 
the  president  of  a  '  German -feeling  Society'  (Deutschgesinnte 
Genossenschafl?) 

Rist,  like  Fleming  and  Dach,  was  one  of  those  Opitzians  who 
Johann  Rist,  surpassed  their  master  in  talent.     His  secular  songs 

1607-1667.  produced  a  great  effect  in  their  time,  and  amongst  his 
religious  poems  we  must  mention  the  sublime  hymn  beginning : 
'  O  Ewigkeit,  du  Donnerwort.'  But  Rist  spoilt  himself  by  over- 
writing. His  fluency  became  shallow  insipidity,  his  grandeur 
degenerated  into  pompous  verbosity,  and  he  never  knew  the  right 
point  at  which  to  stop. 

Zesen,  who  was  an  author  by  profession,  was  not  less  productive 

Phiiipp  von  tnan  R'st>  an<^  wrote  excellent  love-poems  and  novels. 
Zesen,       He   was  sentimental   and   mystical  by   nature,   and 

1619  1689.  pOSSessed  a  great  variety  of  superficial  knowledge. 
He  developed  great  activity  as  a  translator,  particularly  of  Dutch 
works,  and  stood  forth  as  a  champion  of  liberty  of  conscience.  He 
wrote  works  on  metre,  grammar,  and  morals,  also  a  guide  to  polite- 
ness, a  history  and  description  of  Amsterdam,  and  various  devotional 
works.  His  treatment  of  his  subject  is  never  wanting  in  thorough- 
ness, and  his  language  is  always  polished,  his  style  as  finished  as 
he  could  make  it.  Zesen  sometimes  carries  his  thoroughness  to 
exaggeration,  and  appears  as  a  scholar  where  we  only  expect  the 


ch.  ix.]  The  Thirty  Years    War.  325 

poet.  He  can  put  no  limit  to  his  description  of  psychological  states, 
and  he  tries  to  surpass  all  his  contemporaries  in  purity  of  expression. 
No  other  German  writer  has  taken  up  the  patriotic  war  against 
foreign  words  so  thoroughly  in  earnest,  and  in  consequence  none 
has  so  exposed  himself  to  ridicule.  Where  Opitz  makes  ostentatious 
use  of  names  of  ancient  mythology,  Zesen  tries  to  replace  them  bj 
German  ones.  Pallas  was  to  be  called  Kluginne  (klug,  wise),  Venus, 
Lustinne  (Lust,  pleasure),  Jupiter,  Erzgott  (arch-god),  Vulcan,  Glut- 
fang  (glow-catcher).  He  proposed  replacing  all  foreign  derivatives 
by  words  of  purely  German  origin.  But  in  his  own  writings,  Zesen 
did  not  strictly  adhere  to  these  Germanisms,  and  he  never  set  him- 
self up  as  an  unimpeachable  authority  in  the  matter  of  language. 

The  activity  of  most  of  the  above-mentioned  poets  was  con- 
tinued on  into  the  years  succeeding  the  war,  and  the  writings  of 
some  of  them  seem  to  anticipate  the  literature  of  the  following 
period.  Almost  all  of  them  devoted  themselves  chiefly  to  religious  or 
secular  lyric  poetry  ;  but  Zesen  also  cultivated  the  novel,  and  Klaj, 
Rist,  and  Dach  tried  their  hand  at  the  Drama.  The  real  dramatist 
of  this  period  was  Gryphius,  a  Silesian  like  Opitz, 
and  a  man  whose  influence  was  as  great  as  that  of  Gryphius 
Opitz.  He  introduced  the  Renaissance  style  into  and  the 
tragedy,  and  formed  a  special  school  of  dramatic  d**111*' 
writing.  His  poems  too  are  noteworthy,  and  in  everything  he 
forms  the  link  between  the  French-Dutch  Renaissance  of  the 
Opitzians  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Spanish-Italian  bombast  of 
the  later  Silesians  on  the  other.  He  is  more  imaginative  than  the 
former,  and  not  so  exaggerated  as  the  latter.  In  contrast  to  the 
sanguine  and  versatile  lyric  poet  Opitz,  Gryphius  was  a  serious 
and  resolute  man,  with  a  tragic  basis  of  character.  Opitz  used  his 
talent  against  his  evangelical  co-religionists,  but  Gryphius  remained 
all  his  life  a  loyal  Lutheran.  Opitz  poured  flattery  on  distinguished 
men,  but  Gryphius  never  thus  lowered  his  personal  dignity.  Opitz 
devoted  his  energies  exclusively  to  the  Renaissance  movement,  and 
formed  his  ideas  on  the  ancients  and  on  the  Dutch;  Gryphius, 
while  he  followed  Opitz's  example  for  the  most  part,  yet  at  the  same 
time  had  some  connection  with  the  popular  drama,  and  carried  on 
both  in  tragedy  and  comedy  the  style  which  had  been  prevalent 


326  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.       [ch.  ix. 

before  the  war.  We  have  said  that  everything  seemed  prepared 
in  German  literature  before  the  war  for  the  appearance  of  a 
Shakspeare;  owing  to  that  war  Germany  produced  instead  of  a 
Shakspeare  only  a  Gryphius. 

The  Renaissance-drama  in  Holland  attained  its  highest  level  in 
G  h'us  Joost  van  den  Vondel.  Andreas  Gryphius,  who  was 
influenced  a  scholar  of  many-sided  talent,  and  had  studied  and 
by  Joost  van  taught  for  six  years  at  the  University  of  Leyden, 
e  '  translated  one  of  Vondel's  tragedies,  and  learnt  much 
from  him,  both  in  general  choice  of  subjects  and  in  single  dramatic 
motives.  These  two  writers  closely  resemble  each  other  in  the 
technique  of  their  art,  in  their  adherence  to  the  regular  five  acts, 
in  their  endeavours  to  observe  unity  of  time,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  unity  of  place,  in  the  introduction  of  a  chorus  mostly  at  the 
end  of  the  acts,  in  the  use  of  the  Alexandrine  side  by  side  with 
lyric  metres  in  the  chorus,  in  the  alternation  between  long  speeches 
and  short  ones,  and  finally  in  their  stirring  dialogue,  adorned  by 
similes  and  ingenious  modes  of  expression.  Both  adhere  to  the 
modern  school  of  Seneca,  which  furnished  the  leading  type  of 
tragedy  for  the  whole  of  the  Renaissance  literature,  and  was 
already  represented  in  the  German  school-plays  about  the  year 
1600. 

In  the  general  character  of  his  pieces  Gryphius  approaches  more 
closely  to  Seneca  than  Vondel ;   he  piles  up  ghost- 
istics  of      scenes  and  generally  revels  in  the  horrible.     When 
Gryphius'    he  does  depart  from  the  manner  of  Seneca,  it  is  to 
p  ays.        fouow  the  English  and  German  tradition  ;  as,  for  in- 
stance, when  he  puts  a  prologue  into  the  mouth  of  a  personifi- 
cation of  Eternity,  or  makes  the  catastrophe  take  place  on  the  stage 
itself,  instead  of  adopting  the  stereotyped  form  of  report  by  a 
messenger. 

Gryphius  lived  from  1616  to  1664.     He  was  born  in  the  year 

of  Shakspeare's  death,  and  died  a  hundred  years  after  Shakspeare's 

Melancholy  birth.  A  succession  or" sad  experiences  had  early  tinged 

tone  of  hia    his  mind  with   sadness ;   the  dreadful  Thirty  Years' 

ltry-       War  threw  its  shadow  over  his  youth.     A  melancholy 

tone  prevails  in  many  of  his  lyric  poems,  and  brave  endurance  is 


Ch.  ix.]  The  Thirty  Years    War.  327 

the  chief  theme  of  his  tragedies,  some  of  which  were  written  in 
the  last  years  of  the  war.  Later  on,  as  Syndic  of  his  native  town 
of  Glogau,  he  may  have  taken  a  more  cheerful  view  of  life  ;  it  was 
in  this  period  that  his  comedies  appeared. 

Love  is  hardly  touched  on  in  Gryphius'  poems,  and  even  in  his 
Sonnets  we  seldom  find  any  praise  of  women's  beauty.  But  he 
often  sings  of  his  own  experiences  ;  his  birthday  or  the  New  year 
generally  disposes  him  to  serious  reflections.  Satire  Beiigion  his 
too  is  not  strange  to  him,  but  his  chief  theme  is  re-  chief  theme, 
ligion.  He  is  the  author  of  the  two  hymns  beginning:  'Jesus,  meine 
Starke,'  and  *  Die  Herrlichkeit  der  Erden  Muss  Rauch  und  Asche 
werden.'  He  is  absorbed  in  the  thought  of  his  own  sinfulness,  and 
of  the  sufferings  of  Christ.  He  wrote  a  Latin  epic,  taking  the  scene 
on  the  Mount  of  Olives  as  the  central  point  of  interest.  This  work 
shows  perfect  unity  of  composition,  but  is  spoilt  by  the  author's  de- 
light in  descriptions  of  earthly  misery,  of  all  the  horrors  of  sickness 
and  death.  Gryphius  strongly  appeals  to  the  imagination  of  his 
readers.  He  succeeds  in  giving  life  to  the  dryest  subjects,  and 
renders  even  occasional  poems  interesting ;  and  when  he  means 
to  be  simple,  and  lays  aside  all  '  poetic  fancies  and  colours,' 
he  impresses  us  by  his  true  feeling,  and  by  a  great  flow  of  lan- 
guage. 

His  earliest  tragedy,  'Leo  Armenius,'  treats  of  a  successful 
palace-revolution  at  Constantinople,  and  contains  many  Gryphius* 
protests  against  tyranny  and  reflections  on  the  tran-  tragedies, 
sitoriness  of  all  earthly  glory.  Three  other  tragedies  of  his  have 
martyrs  as  their  heroes.  The  martyr  to  religion  is  depicted  in 
Katherine  of  Georgia,  who  resists  the  suit  of  a  heathen  prince ;  the 
political  martyr  in  Charles  I  of  England,  whom  Gryphius  glorified 
in  the  drama  immediately  after  his  death  ;  and  the  martyr  to  duty 
in  Papinianus,  who  will  neither  approve  an  imperial  act  of  violence, 
nor  yet  save  his  life  by  revolutionary  means.  '  Cardenio  and 
Celinde'  is  a  piece  which  breathes  strictly  Christian  sentiments. 
It  differs  from  the  other  plays,  in  not  introducing  any  of  those 
princely  characters,  which  were  at  that  time  thought  essential  to 
tragedy.  It  resembles  the  later  class  of  bourgeois-tragedy,  and 
replaces  the  ordinary  declamatory  style  by  language  more  true  to 


328  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance.      [Ch.  IX. 

reality.  Like  many  dramas  of  the  sixteenth  century  it  is  founded 
on  an  Italian  tale,  of  which  the  following  is  a  short  outline.  Car- 
denio,  being  passionately  in  love  with  Olympia,  wishes  to  murder 
her  husband;  Celinde,  who  has  been  deserted  by  Cardenio,  tries 
to  win  him  back  again  by  magic  spells  ;  but  both  are  cured  of 
their  passion  by  the  intervention  of  higher  powers  in  the  shape 
of  terrifying  and  warning  ghosts.  The  glow  of  earthly  passion 
seems  extinguished  by  the  view  of  death,  and  the  whole  purport  of 
the  play  is  expressed  in  the  warning :  '  Think  every  hour  of  dying/ 
The  first  act  is  long  and  confused,  and  the  fifth  is  taken  up  in  tell- 
ing us  things  which  we  know  already ;  but  the  three  acts  between 
show  us  the  best  that  Gryphius  ever  accomplished  in  the  sphere  of 
tragic  poetry.  Here  we  have  truly  dramatic  effects,  genuine  tragic 
emotion,  and  a  perfect  reflection  of  real  life.  The  characters  are 
clearly  sketched,  though  perhaps  not  fully  developed ;  and  above 
all  we  have,  in  place  of  mere  excited  speeches,  an  interesting  and 
well-developed  plot. 

We  here  feel  ourselves  in  an  atmosphere  akin  to  that  of  Shak- 
Gryphius*  speare's  plays,  and  Gryphius'  comedy  of  '  Peter 
comedies.  Squenz '  actually  deals  with  one  of  Shakspeare's  own 
themes,  namely,  the  acting  of  the  '  mechanicals'  in  the  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream.  The  subject  had  been  brought  by  the  English 
comedians  to  Germany,  where  it  was  afterwards  frequently  made 
use  of.  This  amusing  farce  takes  with  Gryphius  the  form  of  a  satire 
on  the  dramatic  attempts  of  the  Mastersingers,  but  the  best  and 
leading  ideas  of  the  piece  are,  as  we  have  said,  not  original. 
Another  comedy,  of  Gryphius'  own  invention,  entitled  '  Horribili- 
cribrifax,'  introduces  us  to  two  military  braggarts  and  several  pairs 
of  lovers.  One  of  the  soldiers  mixes  French  words,  the  other 
Italian  words  with  his  conversation,  the  schoolmaster  Sempronius 
affects  Latin  and  Greek  expressions,  and  a  Jew  makes  frequent 
use  of  Hebrew  words ;  an  old  woman  misunderstands  the  foreign 
tongues,  and  gets  enraged  through  her  mistakes.  But  these  jokes 
of  language,  which  presupposed  a  great  knowledge  of  languages  in 
the  audience,  are  driven  to  death  in  this  piece.  There  is  too  much 
repetition,  the  action  often  stagnates  for  a  long  time,  and  unity  is 
destroyed  by  the  interweaving  of  several  plots. 


Ch.  ix.]  The  Thirty   Years'  War.  329 

'  Die  Geliebte  Dornrose,'  a  rustic  piece  in  the  Silesian  dialect, 
gives  us  far  more  real  life  than  any  other  of  Gryphius'  'Die  Geliebte 
plays.  The  idea  of  it  was,  to  a  certain  extent,  sug-  Dornrose.' 
gested  by  Vondel,  though  peasant-scenes  of  this  kind  had  long 
been  a  favourite  theme  with  German  dramatists.  The  comic 
treatment  of  dialects  was  an  idea  introduced  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  Sometimes  the  rustic  piece  formed  an  interlude  to 
another  play,  alternating  with  it  act  by  act,  and  this  practice 
too  was  derived  from  the  older  German  drama.  Gryphius' 
'  Dornrose '  is  an  interlude  of  this  kind.  The  plot  is  clear,  con- 
nected and  sufficiently  interesting.  A  pair  of  lovers  are  separated 
by  a  quarrel  between  their  two  families  ;  the  quarrel  is  in  the 
end  made  up,  and  the  youth  and  maiden  are  united.  An  un- 
successful suitor  of  the  girl's  is  also  introduced,  and  a  hag-like 
old  woman  who  would  like  to  have  the  youth  for  herself.  Finally, 
the  whole  party  are  brought  before  the  judge.  The  characters  are 
not  wanting  in  individuality ;  the  dialogue  is  in  prose,  as  in  all 
Gryphius'  comedies.  The  play  to  which  '  Dornrose '  forms  the  in- 
terlude is  a  comic  operetta  (Singsptel),  entitled  '  Das 
Verliebte  Gespenst '  ('  The  ghost  in  love ').  It  stands  in 
contrast  to  '  Dornrose '  by  its  conventional  verses  and  conventional 
motives.  Gryphius  made  some  other  successful  efforts  in  this  new 
class  of  poetry ;  his  two  operatic  festival-plays,  '  Majuma '  and 
'  Piastus,'  are  quite  excellent.  In  addition  to  all  this,  he  translated 
a  Latin  religious  drama,  and  wrote  German  versions  of  Italian  and 
French  comedies.  Gryphius  thus  represents  all  branches  of  the 
drama  of  that  time,  and  we  can  see  that  his  writings  were  affected 
by  almost  all  the  native  and  foreign  influences  which  could  possibly 
be  brought  to  bear  on  a  German  dramatist  of  that  period.  He  justly 
became,  therefore,  a  recognised  authority  among  dramatists,  nor  was 
his  work  quite  without  result  among  the  professional  players.  The 
wandering  players  managed  to  keep  up  their  trade,  . 

though  with  difficulty,  as  may  be  supposed,  through  the      players 
long  years  of  the  war.    The  civic  plays  and  the  school    during  the 
comedies,  for  want  of  development  and  support,  and 
for  want  of  a  capital  to  attract  all  the  best  talent,  sank  to  the 
level  of  mere  local  amusements,  and  thus  became  useless  for  the 


33°  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance. 

general  development  of  the  drama ;  but  these  wandering  troupes 
of  actors  carried  their  art  into  all  parts  of  the  country,  and  kept 
their  stage  open  to  every  available  production.  In  the  course  of 
the  seventeenth  century  they  adopted  Italian,  French,  Spanish,  and 
Dutch  plays  and  themes ;  they  endeavoured  to  draw  what  benefit 
they  could  from  the  dramas  based  on  classical  models,  and  at  the 
same  time  retained  what  had  formed  the  original  basis  of  their 
repertoire,  namely,  English  pieces.  Among  the  latter,  one  attained 
special  popularity,  probably  because  it  was  drawn  from  a  Ger- 
Mariowe's  man  source  ;  this  was  Marlowe's  tragedy  of  '  Doctor 
'  Faustus.'  Faustus,'  which  in  the  course  of  time  assumed  a  more 
concise  and  effective  form  on  their  stage,  and  was  handed  down  to 
posterity  by  means  of  oral  tradition.  Thus  the  tradition  of  the 
popular  drama  was  preserved  by  the  wandering  players,  just  as,  at 
an  earlier  period,  the  heroic  songs  had  been  preserved  by  the 
strolling  gleemen.  We  have  seen  how  the  old  Nibelungen  legend 
attained  in  Middle  High-German  poetry  to  a  position  of  new  im- 
portance ;  even  so  the  legend  of  Doctor  Faust  became  the  centre  of 
modern  German  literature,  and  engaged  the  attention  of  those 
great  German  writers  to  whose  efforts  German  literature  owes  a 
new  period  of  glory  and  splendour. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  DAWN  OF  MODERN  LITERATURE.  FROM  THE  PEACE 
OF  WESTPHALIA  TO  THE  ACCESSION  OF  FREDERICK 
THE  GREAT.  1648-1740. 

PEACE  came  at  last,  in  1648.     It  placed  the  three  Christian  sects 
in  Germany  legally  on  the  same  level,  and  thus  laid     peace  Of 
the  basis  of  modern  toleration.   The  war  left  Germany  Westphalia, 
poorer  by  two-thirds  of  its  population ;  its  prosperity 
was  shaken  to  its  very  foundations,  its  position  among  the  nations 
greatly  lowered,  but  the  spirit  of  its  people  was  still  unbroken. 
The  struggle  to  rise  again  to  new  vigour  and  prosperity  called 
forth  all  the  nation's  strength,  and  its   successful   efforts  in  this 
direction  were  of  benefit  to  its  intellectual  life.     The  peace  of 

Westphalia  in  1648  inaugurates  the  last  great  epoch 

,  ~  ,  .  ,  .    ,  .        ,.  ,  .„  ,   Beginning  of 

of  German  history,  the  period  in  which  we  still  stand.  a  new  peri0<i 

It  marks  a  new  development  in  economics,  politics,    in  history 

and  science,  which,  in  spite  of  single  relapses  and  in-         an(* 

....  .        literature, 

terruptions,  still  continues  to  progress;  it  also  marks 

a  new  movement  in  literature  and  music, — a  movement  which 
reached  its  zenith  about  the  beginning  of  our  century  and  since 
then  has  gradually  declined.  In  the  last  epoch  the  tone  had  been 
set  by  the  taste  of  the  lower  classes,  and  a  plebeian  stamp  had  thus 
been  impressed  on  the  writing  of  the  period ;  but  about  1 600,  the 
nobility  had  begun  once  more  to  bestow  their  favour  on  literature, 
and  had  soon  united  with  the  scholars  in  endeavouring  to  improve 
both  literature  and  language,  through  the  means  of  academies  like 
the  Fruit-bringing  Society.  Most  of  the  German  provinces  took 
part  in  these  praiseworthy  efforts.  In  1650  the  influences  of  that 


332  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

period  of  aspiration  which  preceded  the  war  were  still  living  and 
active,  but  later  on,  literary  tendencies  died  away  in  most  quarters 
under  the  stress  of  exhaustion  and  misery.  The  sphere  of  German 
literature  of  any  higher  order  remained  confined  for  some  time 
to  Hamburg,  Silesia,  and  Saxony,  till  Berlin  in  1690  and  Switzer- 
land in  1720  entered  the  circle.  The  Fruit-bringing  Society  had 
till  1651  been  presided  over  by  its  first  chief,  Prince  Ludwig  of 
Anhalt,  and  from  that  year  till  1662,  by  Duke  Wilhelm  of  Sachs- 
Weimar;  but  after  the  death  of  the  latter,  it  led  but  a  phantom 
sort  of  existence.  The  other  linguistic  societies  and  literary  circles 
also  now  came  to  an  end,  or  else  sank  into  utter  insignificance. 
Single  poets  still  continued  to  be  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  the 
aristocracy,  but  the  upper  classes,  as  a  whole,  now  withdrew  their 

The  aristo-  CO'0?61"^01*  fr°m  native  literary  efforts,  and  paid 
cracy  subject  tribute  to  the  political,  industrial,  commercial,  and 

to  French    literary  superiority  of  their  Western  neighbours,  by 

LC6>     striving    after    French    culture;    this    attitude    they 

retained,    until    confronted    by  native    productions    which   quite 

rivalled  the  French  in  merit.     If  the  nobility  thus  held,  aloof,  it 

became  all  the  more  necessary  for  German  writers  to 

'  win  and  strengthen  the  allegiance  of  the  middle-class 

now  appeals  reading-public,  and  for  this  purpose  to  cultivate  the 

to  the       more  popular  branches  of  literature.     The  learned 

tlite,  who  would  only  write  for  a  learned  and  cultured 
classes.  ' 

audience,  now  began  to  disappear.  In  counting  the 
books  annually  brought  into  the  German  market,  we  find  that  till 
1639  Latin  poetry  had  a  steady  preponderance  over  German,  but 
Latin  gives  a^ter  two  decades  of  fluctuation,  we  find  that  from 
place  to  1659  onward  there  is  just  as  decided  a  preponderance 
German,  of  German  poetry  over  Latin ;  and  it  is  the  same  with 
prose  writing.  We  find  German  asserting  its  power  in  scientific 
works,  and  even  penetrating  to  the  lecture-rooms  of  the  Universities. 
Professors  now  became  journalists  and  poets,  and  diffused  generally 
useful  knowledge.  They  did  not,  like  their  predecessors  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  condescend  to  the  pgpular  level,  but  sought  to  raise 
the  taste  of  their  readers  to  a  higher  standard.  They  were  the 
leaders  of  public  opinion,  and  the  educators  of  those  generations 


Ch.  x.]  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  333 

whose  national  ambition  produced  the  great  literary  achievements 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  They  first  formed  from  amongst  the 
men  and  women  of  the  nobility  and  of  the  middle  classes  that 
middle  stratum  of  the  '  cultivated,'  which  since  that  time  has  made 
up  the  '  public '  of  Germany. 

Now,  as  in  the  beginning  of  this  period,  writers  generally  spring 
from  the  ranks  of  the  learned  classes,  that  is  to  say,  they  have 
generally  had  a  university  education.  The  first  representatives 
of  this  new  period  either  imitated  Opitz,  or  were  directly  opposed 
to  him.  The  pastor  Paul  Gerhardt  improved  the 
tone  of  sacred  poetry ;  Professor  Johann  Laurenberg 
wrote  splendid  satires ;  the  lawyer  Andreas  Gryphius  the  begin- 

published  his  dramas  :    the  theologian  Bucholtz  pro-  ning  of  this 

period, 
duced   long-winded   novels.     It  might  appear  from 

this  that  the  new  literature  was  destined  to  infuse  new  life  simul- 
taneously into  all  the  branches  of  poetry,  but  such  was  not  the 
case ;  only  the  lyric,  epic,  and  didactic  forms  of  writing  were  to 
rise  to  any  permanent  excellence.  The  German  drama  has  not 
to  our  own  day  succeeded  in  establishing  any  fixed  tradition; 
Andreas  Gryphius  belongs  rather  to  the  expiring  than  to  the 
opening  epoch,  and  even  during  his  lifetime,  a  party  arose  which 
condemned  the  theatre  as  sinful  and  worldly. 

Religious  tendencies  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  rise  of  the 
new  literature,  and  now,  as  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  Religious 
centuries,  we  meet  with  an  attitude  of  decided  anta-  influences, 
gonism  to  the  world,  and  with  serious  attacks  even  on  innocent 
pleasures.  Once  more  men's  souls  melted  in  the  fervour  of 
religious  devotion,  and  again  we  find  religious  poetry  striving  after 
earthly  glories  in  its  own  sphere.  The  emotion  awakened  by 
religion  soon  sought  earthly  objects,  and  the  love  of  God  pro- 
moted the  love  of  man.  Emotion  in  itself  was  now  considered 
sacred,  and  the  exalted  state  of  sentiment  and  thought  gave  full 
life  and  varied  form  to  all  classes  of  poetry.  At  the  zenith 
of  this  period  religious  poetry  had  to  yield  the  first  place  to 
secular,  and  the  church  lost  its  hold  over  men's  minds,  till  in 
the  nineteenth  century,  as  formerly  in  the  thirteenth,  its  power 
revived  anew. 


334  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  X. 

The  new  literature  was  to  a  great  extent  determined  by  princely 
favour  or  disfavour.  Those  scientific  men,  who  took  any  share 
in  literature,  were  for  the  most  part  professors,  schoolmasters, 

Princely  or  librarians  in  the  service  of  princes;  and  more 
patronage.  than  once  the  founding  of  a  University,  or  the  period 
of  its  greatest  renown,  marks  a  decided  advance  in  the  intellectual 
and  literary  life  of  Germany. 

Now,  as  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Guelphs  were  reckoned  among 

the  patrons  of  the  national  literature.     Duke  Julius  of 
Brunswick.  .  .     «      - 

Brunswick  (son  of  that  Duke  Heinrich  whom  Luther 

attacked  in  his  pamphlet  '  Wider  Hans  Worst')  introduced  the 
reformed  faith  into  his  dominions,  and  founded  the  University  of 
Helmstedt.  He  was  followed  by  his  son  Heinrich  Julius,  the  drama- 
tist, a  tolerant  and  cultivated  ruler.  Duke  August  the  Younger, 
who  was  reigning  in  Wolfenbiittel  (Brunswick),  at  the  time  of 
the  peace  of  Westphalia,  founded  the  library  at  Wolfenbiittel  and 
patronised  the  liberal  theologians  of  Helmstedt;  this  Duke  was 
himself  a  learned  theologian,  and  had  compiled  a  Life  of  Christ 
from  his  own  translation  of  the  Gospels.  His  son  Ulrich  was  vain, 
gallant,  and  fond  of  splendour,  and  took  Louis  XIV.  as  his  model. 
He  wrote  a  number  of  German  Church-hymns,  which  were  cor- 
rected by  his  teacher  Schottelius,  also  diffuse  novels  like  those 
of  Bucholtz,  and  patronised  the  classical  drama  of  French  origin. 
One  of  his  successors  gave  appointments  in  Brunswick  to  various 
German  poets,  and  made  Lessing  librarian  at  Wolfenbiittel.  The 
Hanoverian -Guelph  line  (which  ascended  the  English  throne) 
succeeded  in  attaching  Leibniz  to  its  service;  it  was  a  prince 
of  this  house  too,  who  in  the  year  1733  founded  the  University 
of  Gottingen,  where  exact  research  soon  flourished,  and  where  an 
exchange  of  ideas  took  place  between  England  and  Germany. 

In  Saxony  the  old  university  of  Leipzig  long  formed  a  literary 
Saxony  and  centre  of  varying  importance,  and  threw  the  once  so 

Prussia,  celebrated  Wittenberg  more  and  more  into  the  shade. 
It  was  a  most  important  event  for  the  intellectual  life  of  Germany, 
when  the  Electoral  House  of  Saxony,  which  had  hitherto  favoured 
Lutheran  orthodoxy,  turned  Catholic  for  the  sake  of  the  Polish 
crown,  and  Prussia  thus  became  the  champion  of  progress  in  Pro- 


ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  335 

testantism,  and  gave  entrance  to  more  liberal  views  in  Church 
matters.  The  Prussian  Calvinistic  sovereigns  who  reigned  over 
Lutheran  subjects  did  great  things  for  the  cause  of  toleration ;  they 
received  the  fugitive  French  Protestants,  and  founded  Universities 
like  Halle,  Berlin,  and  Bonn,  which  became  each  in  its  own  way 
centres  of  a  free  intellectual  life.  All  the  Prussian  rulers  since  the 
great  Kurfiirst  Frederick  William  (1640-1688),  took  an  active  in- 
terest in  German  culture,  and  advanced  it  either  _,  .  , 

IPreaericK 

directly  or  indirectly.     Frederick  the  Great  did  most    the  Great 
in  this  direction,  through  his  Liberalism  in  Church     begins  to 
matters,  his  patriotic  wars,  his  active  sympathy  with  reign> 
literary  culture  and  his  glorious  example  in   patronising   distin- 
guished men  of  letters,  an  example  which  was  imi-     p    . 
tated  among  the  other  German  princes  by  men  like      prepara- 
Karl  August  of  Weimar,  the  patron  of  Goethe.     The    tion» 1648 
period   of  the    first   aspirations   of  modern  German 
poetry  and  science,  the  time  of  preparatory  development  before 
the  accession  of  Frederick  the  Great,  that  is  to  say,  the  ninety- 
two  years  from  1648  to  1740,  form  the  subject  of  the  present 
chapter. 


RELIGION  AND  SCIENCE. 

When  Johann  Kepler  published  his  '  Harmony  of  the  World/  in 
the  fatal  year   1618,  he  accompanied  it  with  these 
words  of  proud  confidence :  '  Here  I  throw  the  dice,    <  Harmony 
and  write  a  book  to  be  read  by  contemporaries  or       of  the 
posterity,  no  matter  which ;  it  may  wait  thousands  of     World»' 
years  for  its  reader,  since  God  Himself  has  waited  six 
thousand  years  for  one  who  should  contemplate  His  work  aright.' 
Kepler  lived  on  with  unimpaired  faculties  till  1630,  to  the  benefit 
of  science  and  to  the  glory  of  his  nation.     He  was  for  a  long  time 
the  only  German  who,  in  the  glorious  century  which  produced 
Galileo,  Descartes,  Bacon,  Hobbes,  Boyle,  Harvey,  Huyghens,  and 
Spinoza,  could  dare  to  plant  his  name  by  the  side  of  these  great 
foreigners.     The  development   of  philosophy,  mathematics,  and 


336  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

natural  science  fell  at  first  to  the  share  of  the  Western  nations, 
the  French,  Dutch,  and  English.  Germany  did  not  produce  any 

other  great  man  of  science  besides  Kepler,  till  Leibniz 
No  other  ° 

great        established  his  fame,  by  the  side  of  Locke  and  Newton. 
German      It  was  not  till  Leibniz's  time  that  centres  of  research 
began  to  be  founded  in  Germany,  such  as  England 
possessed  in  the  Royal  Society,  and  France  in  the 
Paris  Academy. 

The  Thirty  Years'  War  broke  in  like  a  devastating  flood  over 
Deplorable    re%'ous  an<^  secular  knowledge.     The  burning  pas- 
effect  of  the  sion    for    scientific    progress,   which   had   animated 
Thirty       Kepler,   was   stifled.      Theology   alone    retained    its 
1       ar*  power ;  but  it  showed  its  strength  only  in  doctrinal 
controversies,  and  did  nothing  for  the  improvement  of  morals.     It 
abandoned  the  people  to  the  increasing  spirit  of  coarseness,  and 
to    that   code   of  military   morality   which,   under   the   name   of 
Reputation,  spread  even  to  the  lower  classes, — a  morality  which 
replaced  conscience  and  true  honour  by  a  conventional  respect 
for  the  claims  of  those  of  the  same  social  rank,  and  a  brutal  disre- 
gard of  the  rights  of  those  lower  down  in  the  social  scale. 

But  it  is  only  the  dominant  majority  that  presents  such  a 
melancholy  picture ;  in  secret,  those  forces  were  working  which 
preserved  the  ideals  of  earlier  times  for  the  benefit  of  posterity. 
Johann  Valentine  Andrea  was  still  living.  The  writings  of  Johann 
Arnd  had  not  yet  fallen  into  oblivion,  and  their  readers  drew 
from  them  a  purer  form  of  religion.  The  philo- 

Joachim. 

Jungius      sopher  and  naturalist  Joachim  Jungius,  a  moderate 
and         Baconian,  was  director  of  the  academic  Gymnasium 

Baithasar    jn  Hamburg,  and  made  it  widely  renowned  as  a  semi- 
Bchuppius. 

nary  of  learning.     Marburg  enjoyed  the  teaching  and 

preaching  of  Baithasar  Schuppius,  who  was  also  later  on  called  to 
Hamburg.  He  was  a  popular  orator  and  writer  who,  like  the 
satirists  of  the  sixteenth  century,  devoted  his  attention  to  real  life, 
and  inculcated  practical  Christianity.  Putting  aside  controversies 
of  doctrine,  he  attacked  vice  in  all  its  forms,  and  by  his  realistic 
power  of  description  he  brought  things  home  to  men's  minds, 
and  was  able  at  once  to  instruct  and  to  amuse.  At  the  Univeisity 


Ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  337 

of  Hclmstedt  we  find  as  teachers  Georg  Calixtus   and  Hermann 
Conring,  the  former  an  enlightened  theologian,  who 
sought  out    the   points   of  agreement    between    the      Calixtus 
two  Protestant  confessions  (Lutherans  and  Calvinists),         and 
and  insisted    that    these    only  were    essential,    the     Hermann 
latter  a  scholar  of  marvellously  wide  learning,  a  theo- 
retical and  practical  physician,  a  theologian,  politician,  and  unprin- 
cipled journalist,  and  at  the  same  time  the   founder  of  the  history 
of  German  law.     In  the  neighbouring  town  of  Wolfenbiittel,  and 
in  the  service  of  the  same  Guelph  line  as  the  two       Justus 
scholars  just  mentioned,  lived  Justus  Georg  Schotte-        Georg 
lius,  the  most  distinguished  grammarian  of  the  time.  Schottelius. 
He  not  only  published  a  most  valuable  manual  of  correct  speech, 
but  also  made  a  survey  of  the  history  of  the  German  language, 
and  intended  to  produce  a  dictionary  on  a  very  sensible  plan,  by 
the  collaboration  of  various  scholars. 

All  these  men  arose  within  the  Lutheran  pale,  and  all  of  them 
lived  to  see  the  religious  peace  of  1648;  Andrea  died  in  1654, 
Calixtus  in  1656,  Jungius  in  1657,  Schuppius  in  1661,  Schottelius 
in  1676,  Conring  in  1681.  Among  the  Catholics  also  polemical 
writing  did  not  absorb  all  energy.  In  Bavaria  the  Catholic 
Alsatian,  Jacob  Balde,  wrote  his  highly  imaginative  writers, 
and  elaborate  Latin  poems ;  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Moselle  Fried- 
rich  Spec  was  composing  his  tender,  graceful  German  hymns. 
Outside  the  ruling  Churches,  the  doctrines  of  Schwenckfeld  and 
Jacob  Bohme  retained  their  vitality,  and  the  mediaeval  mystics 
acquired  new  hold  over  men's  minds. 

But  it  was  not  till  after  the  peace  of  1648  that  all  these  good 
tendencies   were   brought   to   maturity.      A  tolerant      spirit  of 
spirit,  a  reconciliation  of  differences,  mark  the  coming     toleration 
period.     Party  ties  were  weakened   and    individuals    after  1648- 
found  a  way  of  accommodating  themselves  to  each  other ;  religious 
feeling  and  practical  Christianity  took  the  place  of  religious  con- 
troversy.    We  can  trace  this  tolerant  tendency  in  all  the  various  sects 
at  this  period ;  a  peaceable  disposition  might  now  again  exist  in 
company  with  the  strictest  faith.    Just  before  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  songs  of  Friedrich  Spec  became  known  among 


33 8  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  x. 

the  Catholics  and  those  of  Paul  Gerhardt  among  the  Protestants, 
and  however  these  two  poets  may  differ  from  each  other,  yet  we  can 
trace  in  both  kindred  features,  characteristic  of  the  new  period. 
Friedrich  Spec,  a  Jesuit  of  noble  descent,  who  came  from 
Friedrich  Kaiserswerth  on  the  lower  Rhine,  was  a  gentle  soul, 
8Pee-  and  one  of  the  first  opponents  of  the  outrageous 
judicial  murders  committed  in  the  trial  of  witches.  Spec  died 
at  Treves  in  1635,  at  the  age  of  forty-four,  and  it  was  not  till  1649 
that  his  posthumous  German  works  were  published,  namely  his 
'Giildnes  Tugendbuch '  and  his  '  Trutznachtigall.'  The  former  is 
a  devotional  work  in  prose,  with  poems  inserted  in  it,  and  the  latter 
a  collection  of  sacred  hymns.  In  both  the  ideas  and  spirit  of 
mysticism  and  of  the  Song  of  Solomon  are  predominant.  The 
soul  worships  Christ  as  her  bridegroom,  and  embraces  Him  with 
fervent  devotion. 

Spec's    poems   are   connected  with   the   Latin   hymns  of  the 

Character     Middle  Ages,  and  continue  the  sentimental  style  of 

of  his        the  Mystics  ;  but  the  Renaissance  has  imbued  them 

religious     with  its  splendour  and  its  audacity,  and  here  and  there 

poetry.       wg  catcn  jn  them  the  tone  of  jne  social  song.     They 

are  full  of  disdain  of  the  world  and  delight  in  nature,  longings  for 
death  and  lamentations  over  sin ;  the  poet  delights  in  personi- 
fications of  abstract  conceptions,  in  childish  playing  with  words 
and  feelings,  and  sentimental  enthusiasm.  Pure,  heavenly  love 
is  called  Cupido,  is  blind,  and  wounds  the  soul  with  its  arrows. 
In  one  poem  Christ  is  praised  as  the  good  Shepherd  Daphnis ; 
in  another  the  moon  leads  the  stars  out  to  pasture  and  sings 
them  a  sacred  pastoral-hymn.  The  prevailing  tone  is  idyllic, 
and  a  spirit  of  reconciliation  and  mercy  runs  through  all  the 
poems.  We  feel  that  a  true  poet  of  tender  feeling  is  here  pouring 
out  in  solitude  before  his  Creator  complaints  of  love  and  songs  of 
praise. 

In  Johann  Scheffler  of  Breslau  (1624-1677),  the  genius  of  Fried- 

Johann      rich  Spec  appears  deepened,  widened,  and  mingled 

Bcheffler.     wjth  other  elements.      Schemer  published  his  most 

important  poetic  works   under  the   name  of  Johannes  Angelus 

Silesius.      He  began  as  a  Protestant  doctor,  and  ended  as  a  monk. 


ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  339 

The  Silesian  adherents  of  Jacob  Bohme  put  him  on  the  track 
of  the  mediaeval  mystics,   and  he  was   soon   entirely  captivated 
by  the   religion  of  the  Middle  Ages.      In   1653  he  became  a 
Catholic,  was  consecrated  to  the  priesthood,  and  allowed  himself 
to  engage  in  the  most  bitter  controversy  with  his  former  brothers 
in  the  faith.     The  character  of  Scheffler's  poetry  also  changed  iu 
later  life ;  his  style  became  more  harsh,  and  he  passed  from  ideal 
creations  to  pompous  descriptions  of  externals.     In  his  '  Cheru- 
binischer  Wandersmann '  (1657)  he  teaches  the  mys-  His  'Cheru- 
tical  way  to  God;    this  work  is  full  of  profound    -^™\  ^ 
sayings  and  gives  pregnant  expression  to    thoughts       mann.' 
tinged  with  pantheism.     His  '  Heilige  Seelenlust'  contains  sacred 
pastoral  songs  of  Psyche  to  her  beloved  Jesus,  which         His 
remind   us    strongly   of    Spee's    idyllic    mannerism.     'Heilige 
But  Scheffler  can  also  strike  other  tones  than  these.   Seelenlust-' 
He  sings  a  more  vigorous  strain  in  the  hymns :    '  Auf,  auf,  O 
Seel',  auf,  auf,  zum  Streit,'  and  '  Mir  nach  spricht 
Christus  unser   Held,   Mir  nach   ihr   Christen   alle.' 
And  in  the  third  of  his  greater  works,  his  '  Sinnliche  Betrachtung  der 
vier  letzten  Dinge,'  he  paints  the  pleasures  of  heaven  and   the 
horrors  of  hell  in  unsparing  detail. 

The  Life  of  Jesus  was  written  with  much  feeling  by  the  Capuchin 
Father  Martin  of  Cochem,  who  thus  furnished  one  of 
the  best  Catholic  works  of  devotion.     He,  too,  was     -re^a  °b 
indebted  to  the   mystical  literature   of  the   Middle       Father 
Ages,  and  whatever  holy  men  or  women  pretended  to       Martin 
have  learnt  in  visions  about  the  life  of  the  Redeemer,   c 
or  the  feelings  of  His  mother,  was  received  by  him  as 
important  historical  evidence.    Moreover  he  allowed  his  own  ima- 
gination full  scope  in  expansion  and  romantic  description.      He 
divides  the  story  of  Christ's  life  into  short  sections,  each  of  which 
is  followed  by  a  prayer.     The  narrative  itself  is  far  removed  from 
the  simplicity  of  the  Gospels,  but  is  by  no  means  without  merit.    If 
Martin's  purpose  was  so  to  present  the  subject,  that  even  the  dullest 
heart  should  be  roused  to  feelings  of  compassion  and  piety,  then  he 
has  probably  obtained  his  end  in  the  best  way  imaginable.    Every- 
thing is  very  graphically  and  exactly  described,  in  a  manner  best 

Z    S 


34O  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

calculated  to  suit  the  popular  mind.  The  author  even  knows  the 
dimensions  of  the  cave  in  which  Christ  was  born,  and  the  number 
of  hammer-strokes  which  nailed  him  to  the  cross.  A  strong  appeal 
is  always  made  to  the  feelings,  and  every  situation  and  sentiment 
is  fully  exhausted.  Father  Martin  outdoes  the  most  thrilling  and 
Sentimental  norrible  elements  of  the  religious  popular  plays,  and 
character  carries  to  a  climax  that  sentimental  view  of  Christ's 

of  the        ijf6j  which  Luther  had  so  strongly  deprecated.     The 
\vork 

scourging  and  the  crucifixion  are  horrible  to  read ; 

but  Martin  is  equally  successful  in  idyllic  scenes,  and  shows  great 
tenderness  of  feeling  in  his  account  of  the  birth  of  Christ  and  his 
picture  of  the  life  of  the  Holy  Family.  Father  Martin  thinks  that 
he  is  helping  on  the  salvation  of  his  reader  by  exciting  his  emotion. 
He  does  not  terrify  the  sinner  with  hell,  but  shows  him  a  God  of 
mercy,  and  addresses  him  in  these  words : '  Take  courage  and  despair 
not,  however  low  thou  mayest  have  fallen  ;  read  often  with  devotion 
in  this  book ;  endeavour  to  move  thy  heart  to  compassion,  and  be 
assured  that  there  is  still  help  for  thee.' 

The  Augustine  monk,  Father  Abraham  a  Sancta  Clara,  a  con- 
Father       temporary  of  the  Capuchin  Cochem,  was  the  most 

raham     ceiebrated  Catholic  preacher  of  that  time ;  he  was  a 
a  Sancta 
Clara,  1644-  fruitful  writer,  and  his  style,  like  Cochem's,  was  popular 

1709.        and  graphic.     But  where  Cochem   seeks   to   edify, 

Abraham  endeavours  rather  to  interest  and  amuse.     The  former, 

in  his  depth   of  feeling,  resembles   his   countryman    Spec,   and 

reminds  one  of  older   Rhenish  writings,  full  of  mystic  fervour; 

but  the  Swabian  Abraham,  who  found  his  chief  sphere  of  activity 

as  a  Court-preacher  to  the  emperor  in  Vienna,  leans  rather  to  the 

plain-spokenness  of  mediaeval  Bavarian  writers  and  to  the  satire 

of  Upper-Rhenish  authors  of  later  date.     In  his  writings  he  is 

Hig         always  an  orator,  and  we  may  s\y  without  exaggera- 

oratorical    tion  that  he  is  one  of  the  greatest  oratorical  geniuses 

genius.       tnat  Gerrnany  ever  produced.    He  is  able,  better  than 

any  other  writer  of  the  seventeenth  century,  to  rivet  the  attention 

and  work  up  the  interest  of  his  readers  by  suspense  and  surprise.  His 

oratorical  devices  are  not  always  refined,  and  are  often  most  unsuited 

to  the  dignity  of  the  pulpit ;  but  the  scurrilous  style  of  preaching 


Ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  341 

had  the  authority  of  a  long  tradition  to  back  it,  dating  as  it  did 
from  the  Middle  Ages.  Among  Protestant  preachers,  Schuppius 
may  be  compared  with  Abraham,  but  the  Catholic  preacher  far 
surpassed  the  Protestant  in  system,  and  in  fascinating  power  of 
language.  Abraham  is  filled  with  an  honourable  hatred  of  vice, 
and  tries  bravely  to  reform  morals  by  his  preaching ;  the  Court- 
preacher  does  not  spare  the  Court,  nor  the  priest  the  clergy. 
Where  he  means  to  be  profound,  he  is  to  our  mind  almost  absurd, 
but  he  always  shows  great  force  in  satire.  He  draws  typical 
characters,  describes  emotions  and  passions,  and  is  inexhaustible 
in  appropriate  anecdotes,  similes,  and  jokes.  He  makes  skilful  use 
of  his  heterogeneous  information ;  his  writings  are  full  of  minute, 
dramatic  genre-pictures  drawn  from  his  observation  of  the  life  around 
him,  pictures  in  which  he  brings  graphically  before  our  His 
eyes  the  Vienna  of  that  period,  with  all  its  love  of  plea-  pictures  of 
sure,  its  curiosity,  frivolity,  and  affected  gentility.  His  real  li*e- 
intellectual  stand-point  is  that  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the 
objects  of  his  satire  are  all  to  be  found  already  in  Thomas  Murner. 
His  way  of  looking  at  the  world  cannot  be  compared  with  the 
contemplative  gaze  of  Hans  Sachs,  but  with  regard  to  literary  art, 
the  school  of  the  Renaissance  has  raised  him  far  above  such  pre- 
decessors. There  is  hardly  a  trace  of  deep  religious  thought  in 
his  writings,  and  in  this  respect  Father  Martin  von  Cochem  is 
decidedly  superior  to  him.  The  temple  into  which  he  leads  us 
resembles  a  cabinet  of  curiosities,  and  beyond  it  we  gaze  not  into 
the  great  realm  of  nature,  but  into  a  theatre  for  burlesque.  The 
power  of  the  Church  over  the  minds  of  men  was  as  little  in- 
creased by  exhibiting  holy  things  in  the  light  of  sparkling  wit, 
as  by  teaching  the  soul  to  find  the  mystic  way  back  to  its  divine 
source  through  pious  sentiment,  without  the  aid  of  any  priestly 
mediator. 

Abraham  a  Sancta  Clara  died  in  1709  at  Vienna.  He  reached 
the  age  of  sixty-five,  and  had  been  engaged  in  literary  activity 
since  1679.  He  formed  a  special  school  of  writing,  and  his 
memory  long  continued  to  live  both  in  the  scene  of  his  labours 
and  also  in  wider  circles. 

Meanwhile  the  Protestant  world  had  produced  its  Spener  and 


343  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

its  Leibniz,  and  had  risen  to  a  far  higher  level  both  in  spirit  and 
Protestant    in  knowledge.     At  the  head   of  the  new  movement 
writers.      stood  Paul  Gerhardt,  who  is  generally  held  to  be  the 
greatest  Protestant  hymn-writer  after  Luther. 

Gerhardt's  earliest  church-hymns  were  published  in  1648,  and  in 

Paul         l66V    appeared   the    first    collected   edition   of   120 

Qerhardt,     hymns.    He  came  from  Grafenhainichen,  in  the  neigh- 

1606-1676.    bourhood  of  Bitterfeld,  and  studied  in  Wittenberg ;  from 

1657  to  1666  he  was  Deacon  at  the  Nicolai-Kirche  in  Berlin,  and  he 

died  in  1676  at  the  age  of  seventy  as  Archdeacon  in  Liibben.    He 

was  a  faithful  Lutheran,  and  was  firmly  convinced  that  in  the  poor 

'  Formula  Concordiae '  of  1580  he  possessed  the  truth  which  alone 

could  bring  salvation.  He  refused  to  sign  a  rescript  of  the  great  Kur- 

ftirst,  which  forbade  the  Lutherans  to  revile  the  Calvinists,  and  was 

on  account  of  this  deposed  from  his  Berlin  incumbency.   His  conduct 

in  this  matter  was  prompted  by  conscientious  scruples,  not  by  a 

natural  impulse  of  character ;    his  was  a  peaceable  nature,  and  a 

peaceful  spirit  breathes  also  in  his  hymns,  which  were  inspired  by 

pious  feeling,  and  appealed  to  pious  feeling.     Many  of 

His  hymns.    J          .  •       u-  u 

them  have  really  become  sacred  popular  songs,  in  which 

millions  of  faithful  souls  still  continue  to  find  edification.  These 
hymns  combined  all  that  could  appeal  to  wide  circles  of  readers — 
narratives  of  sacred  events  in  ballad- form,  instructive  and  pregnant 
thoughts,  devout  fervour,  a  sublime  view  of  divine  things,  and  poetic 
glorification  of  domestic  bliss.  Gerhardt  often  draws  from  the  Psalms 
and  from  other  parts  of  the  Bible,  but  he  also  made  use  of  Latin 
poems  by  St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  and  of  prayers  by  Johann 
Arnd.  Where  he  does  follow  his  own  inspiration,  he  is  not  par- 
ticularly original,  but  it  was  just  by  giving  a  poetic  form  to  well- 
known  subjects  that  he  was  able  to  appeal  to  all  hearts.  Gerhardt 
is  more  serious  and  more  simple  than  Spec,  and  does  not  diffuse 
so  much  earthly  lustre  over  his  poetry.  He  is  less  serious  than 
Luther,  whom  he  surpasses,  however,  in  elegance  of  form,  while 
on  the  other  hand  he  is  inferior  to  Spec  in  melody.  He  seldom 
attains  to  Luther's  pregnant  force,  and  where  he  treats  the  same 
ideas,  he  is  always  weaker.  Sometimes  Gerhardt  becomes  quite 
prosaic,  and  sometimes  he  passes  the  limits  of  good  taste,  but 


Ch.  X.]  Religion  and  Science.  343 

his  best  hymns  are  written  in  a  beautifully  tender  and  harmonious 
tone ;  peaceful  acquiescence  in  God's  will  seems  to  have  dissolved 
all  thoughts  into  soft  music  (cf.  the  hymn  beginning  '  Nun  ruhen 
alle  Walder'). 

His   religious  earnestness  does  not  exclude  cheerfulness,  and 
cheerfulness  forms,  indeed,  the  leading  moral  cha-  . 

racteristic  of  his  poetry.      Whereas  with  Luther  the      serious, 
world  is  full  of  storm  and  tempest,  with  Gerhardt,  yet  cheerful 
on  the  contrary,  it  lies  in  perpetual  sunshine ;  every-        tone- 
thing,  he   thinks,   is   so   beautifully  calculated   for   the   good   of 
man;    death  and  hell   have  long  lost  their  power,  and  the  soul 
rejoices  in  the  certainty  of  salvation ;  we  must  throw  our  cares  on 
God,  for  God  cares  for  us,  and  if  we  succumb,  He  will  extend  His 
mercy  to  us.     Luther  resists  evil  like  a  man,  but  Gerhardt  over- 
looks it  like  a  youth.     Even  sin  he  thinks  is  of  some  use  :  '  Had  I 
no  guilt  of  sin  on  me,  I  had  no  part  in  Thy  mercy.'     While 
Luther's  hymns  are  congregational,  Gerhardt's  express        Their 
the  feelings  of  the  individual  soul,  and  as  such  they    individual 
are  the  beginning  of  modern  German  lyric  poetry.     cliaracter- 
What  Gerhardt  began  in  the  religious  sphere  was  completed  by 
Goethe  in  the  secular,  and  it  is  by  no  mere  chance  that  we  find 
these  words  of  Gerhardt   echoed  again  by  Goethe  :  '  How  long 
shall  I  be  sorrowful,  and  eat  my  bread  with  tears  ? ' 

Gerhardt  did  not  purposely  seek  out  those  situations  in  which  a 
religious  hymn  would  be  suitable.     One  might  think  that  many  of 
his  poems  were  the  expression  of  his  own  inner  experience,  but 
their  personal  character  never  hinders  their  general  application. 
Every  devout  mind  can  follow  him  when  he  calls  forth  memories 
of  the  Saviour  in  connection  with  the  church-festivals ;    everyone 
can  find  in  his  hymns  consecration  of  joy,  and  comfort  for  dark 
hours.     The  whole  of  life,  seen  from  the  Christian    a^arat's 
point  of  view,  is  spread  out  in  his  poems.    He  praises      pictures 
the   morning    and    the    evening,    and    accompanies        of  life, 
us  in  summer  through  the  flowery  land.   He  describes  earthly  bliss 
and  earthly  sorrow.     He  praises  marriage,  and  gives  us  a  picture 
of  the  Christian  wife  in  her  household.   Gerhardt  tries  to  rob  death 
of  its  sting  and  to  make  parting  easy  to  the  dying  :  he  tells  us  that 


344  The  Da^vn  of  Modern  Liter  attire.  [Ch.  X. 

we  are  only  guests  on  earth  and  points  us  to  our  home  above.  He 
speaks  in  ttie  name  of  a  father  who  has  lost  his  little  son,  and  who 
imagines  he  can  hear  him  helping  the  angels  singing,  and  breaks 
into  tears  of  joy  at  the  thought.  Or  Gerhardt  makes  the  dead 
child  speak  to  its  parents,  and  tell  them  not  to  weep  for  him. 
These  poems  were  produced  in  connection  with  real  events,  and 
were  written  by  Gerhardt  in  fulfilment  of  his  spirituil  calling.  He 
was  a  thoroughly  human  poet,  and  knew  how  to  pour  balm  on 
wounded  souls. 

Besides  Gerhardt's,  many  other  sacred  poems  were  written  about 
this  time;  the  second  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  were  in  this  respect  more  fruitful  than 
the  century  after  the  Reformation.  Noble  ladies  and  women  of 
the  middle  classes  mingled  their  voices  in  the  holy  choir,  and  gave 
their  enthusiastic  sympathy  to  that  development  of 

ment  of  religious  feeling  which  followed  on  Gerhardt,  and  is 
religious  mostly  connected  with  the  names  of  Spener  and 
ing'  Zinzendorf.  Gerhardt,  Spener,  and  Zinzendorf  belong 
together ;  they  all  three  departed  from  the  bigoted,  dogmatic  type 
of  Lutherism  ;  they  all  three  transferred  the  centre  of  religious  life  to 
the  feelings  of  the  individual,  and  endeavoured  to  extract  the  gold 
of  pious  sentiment  from  the  depths  of  inward  experience.  But 
whereas  Gerhardt  never  wavered  in  his  allegiance  to  the  established 
Church,  Spener  felt  strongly  drawn  toward  the  small  churches 
within  the  Church,  while  Zinzendorf  actually  gathered  some  of 
these  into  a  new  sect. 

Spener  was  an  Alsatian  by  birth,  and  passed  his  life  in  Frank- 
furt on  the  Main,  in  Dresden,  and  in  Berlin.  In  Frankfurt  he 

Spener's  published  the '  Pia  Desideria  '  (1675),  which  afterwards 
« Pia  became  the  programme  of  Pietism.  He  declared  that 
Desideria.'  wjtn  regard  to  Christian  morals  and  life  the  Reforma- 
tion was  not  anything  like  completed,  and  he  strongly  condemned 
the  prevalent  bitter  strife  between  those  of  different  faith.  He 
wished  to  banish  pedantry  and  artificial  rhetoric  from  the  pulpit. 
He  proposed  private  assemblies  for  the  promotion  of  domestic 
piety,  as  well  as  public  services.  He  wished  the  idea  of  a  universal 
priesthood  to  be  taken  more  seriously,  and  the  propagation  of 


Ch.  X.]  Religion  and  Science.  345 

Bible  knowledge  to  be  more  energetically  carried  out.  He  pene- 
trated from  outward  faith,  outward  virtues,  and  outward  prayer,  to 
the  inner  man,  the  'heart/  as  he  says,  and  declared  everything 
hypocrisy  which  did  not  flow  from  that  source.  He  refers  to  the 
writings  of  Johann  Arnd,  whose  fundamental  doctrine  was  that  one 
must  not  only  believe  in  Christ  but  also  live  in  Christ,  and  like  Arnd 
he  praised  the  works  of  the  mediaeval  mystics  as  a  school  of  piety. 
Spener  shows  very  little  originality,  but  he  entered  into  the  deepest 
wants  of  thuiiet  a,  and  gave  them  adequate  expression.  He  became 
a  spiritual  leader  in  the  widest  circles  of  the  Lutheran  Church.  In 
Saxony,  it  is  true,  he  and  his  followers  had  to  yield  to  the  here- 
ditary orthodoxy,  but  in  Prussia  they  attained  great  power.  Spener 
acquired  a  decisive  influence  over  most  Church  appointments,  and 
at  the  new  University  of  Halle  his  disciples  found  a  sure  sphere 
for  their  activity.  Starting  thence,  Pietism  spread  Spener 
over  the  whole  of  Lutheran  Germany.  In  all  parts  founded 
small  communities  of  the  pious  were  formed,  who  pietism. 
strictly  separated  themselves  from  the  children  of  the  world,  seeking 
to  sanctify  their  life,  and  who  made  self-examination  a  sacred  duty, 
shedding  tears  over  their  sins. 

At  the  same  time,  and  even  earlier,  similar  tendencies  may  be 
traced  in  the  Calvinistic  or  Reformed  Church.  Differences  of 
doctrine  and  creed  retired  visibly  into  the  background.  Attempts 
were  made  to  effect  a  union  between  the  two  Protestant  creeds, 
and  Count  Zinzendorf  gave  to  both  equal  rights  in  his  Moravian 
community. 

Spener  was  not  a  first-class  writer,  nor  a  great  poet.     His  prose 
is  heavy  and  his  few  poems  are  only  rhymed  reflections.     But  con- 
temporary with  him,  and  independent   of  his  influence,  though 
somewhat  resembling  him  in  character,  we  find  Chris-     Christian 
tian  Scriver  of  Rendsburg,  a  powerful  preacher  and  an      Scriver. 
excellent  writer  of  devotional  works.   He  was  somewhat  older  than 
Spener,  and  Magdeburg  was  the  chief  scene  of  his  «Q0tthoid's 
labours.  In  'Gotthold's  Occasional  Meditations,'  Scriver    zufaiiige 
follows  the  example  of  an  English  writer,  and  connects  Andachten, 
religious  reflections  with   the  events   and  scenes  of 
everyday  life.    His  much-esteemed  '  Soul's  Treasure '  (1675-1691), 


34^  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  X. 

describes  the  original  high  dignity  of  the  soul,  its  fall  and  repent-: 
ance,  its  holy  life,  sorrows,  and  temptations,  its  longing 

X  Jrl  G 

'  Seelen-      for  the  Eternal  and  its  preparation  for  death.      The 

schatz.'  best  parts  of  this  work  are  full  of  beautifully 
developed  similes,  and  the  style  often  moves  in  grand  periods; 
it  contains  many  references  to  the  real  world,  much  miscellaneous 
information  and  anecdote,  all  penetrated  with  high  thoughts,  which 
feed  and  exalt  pious  imagination. 

Within  the  Reformed  Church  the  pietistic  movement  produced 

Joachim  Neander,  who  died  young  in  1680,  in  his 

Ueander's    native  town  of  Bremen.     A  year  before  his  death  he 

hymns,  published  his  sacred  hymns,  by  which  the  German 
1  7  '  Calvinists  also  gained  a  share  in  the  treasure  of 
German  hymnology,  after  having  so  long  contented  themselves 
with  a  dull  translation  of  Marot's  Psalms.  Neander's  poems  are 
mostly  the  expression  of  his  inward  intercourse  with  God ;  sur- 
rounding humanity  disappears  for  him  when  he  soars  in  pious 
aspiration  to  his  Creator.  The  Church  feasts  are  not  celebrated 
in  his  poems,  but  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  holds  an 
important  place ;  otherwise  the  hymns  all  deal  with  sanctification 
of  private  life.  Evil  is  much  more  strongly  dwelt  on  than  in 
Gerhardt;  the  fearful  soul,  and  Christ  its  Comforter,  are  often 
introduced  in  a  dialogue,  and  the  latter  says  that  He  feels  His 
heart  breaking  in  Him  from  pity  for  the  sinner.  The  poet 
imagines  quite  a  human  relation  between  Christ  and  himself  when 
he  says :  '  The  world,  the  devil,  and  sin  have  torn  me  away  from 
Thee ;  I  am  sorry  for  this,  and  return  to  Thee  again ;  there  is 
my  hand,  be  mine,  and  I  am  Thine.'  Most  striking  is  the  way 
in  which  he  abruptly  breaks  off  when  he  is  losing  himself  in  the 
thoughts  of  eternity ;  '  Reason,  be  still,  the  sea  is  far  too  broad 
and  far  too  deep.'  Those  of  Neander's  poems  which  are  most 
correct  in  form  are  by  no  means  his  best.  Much  fault  might  be 
found  in  detail  with  the  celebrated  hymn : — '  Lobet  den  Herrn, 
den  machtigcn  Konig  der  Ehren.'  But  there  is  a  ring  in  it  like 
the  sound  of  trumpets,  and  it  presents  to  the  imagination  sublime 
ideas  in  striking  similes. 

The  pietistic  hymnology,  such  as  was  produced  at  Halle  in 


Ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  347 

particular,  dealt  mostly  with  the  inner  life  of  pious  men,  which  was 
described  with  the  minutest  details.     We  can  trace     character 
in  all  these  hymns  a  tendency  towards  mysticism,  and        Of  the 
towards  the  language  and  ideas  of  the  Song  of  Solo-       hymns 
mon.      In  the  religious  life  of  this  period  we  meet     pie 
again  with  all  the  exaggerated  features  of  mediaeval  mysticism, 
such    as   visions,  ecstasies,    and    significant   dreams,    which   now 
appear  under  the  name  of  penitential  struggles,  awakening   and 
regeneration;    and    the    pietist   hymn-writers,   too,    are    inclined, 
like  the  older  mystics,  to  enlarge  on  the  union  with  God,  and 
to  paint  with   earthly  colours  the  relation  of  the    soul   to    her 
heavenly  bridegroom.      Johann  Scheffler's  writings  still  exercised 
an   influence    on    Protestant   poetry,   and    many    of  his    poems 
were  incorporated  in  the  pietistic  hymn-books.     The  lighter  and 
more   effeminate    style    of  writing,   which    appeared    among    the 
Protestants    about    1600,    and    was    continued   in    the    Catholic 
Spec,  is   predominant   in  all    these  first  efforts   of  modern  lyric 
poetry. 

One  of  the  best  and  most  original  of  Scheffler's  pietistic  suc- 
cessors was  Gottfried  Arnold,  of  Anneberg  in  Saxony. 

He  was  a  disciple  of  Spener's  in  his  Dresden  period,     Gottfried 

.  Arnold  s 

but  afterwards  entered  on  somewhat  eccentric  paths.      «unpar- 

In  his  '  Impartial  history  of  Church  and  Heresy,'  an      teiische 

important  work  of  vast  scope,  he  took  the  part  of  the     Kirchen- 

.      „,,         ,  iij  .    11   und  Ketzer- 

heretics  against  the  Church,  or  rather  he  deprecated  all     historie ' 

religious  persecutions,  and  in  his  poems  he  carefully 
avoided  everything  ecclesiastical,  so  as  to  give  new  and  varied 
expression    to   mystic   contemplation    and    rapture.         Hia 
His   hymns    consist   largely  of  religious  love-songs,     religious 
and  his  lofty  and  bold  flights  of  fancy  sometimes  re-       poetry, 
mind  us  of  Schiller.     Like  Scheffler  he  bids  farewell  to  earthly 
things,  and  says  good-night  to  mountains,  vales,  and  meadows.     In 
his  poems,  as  in  the  old  Minnesang,  sympathy  with  nature  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  rapture  of  love.     Far  from  the  tumult  of  the  city, 
Arnold  praises  God  in  the  greenwood;  there  he  seems  to  have 
found  Paradise,  there  everything  smiles  on  him  in  loveliness,  there 
truth  and  simplicity  reign.     Love,  he  says,  bears  the  soul  aloft 


348  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  x. 

into  calm  air,  beyond  the  wild  waves  of  all  earthly  things.  Love 
creates  the  deepest  peace  of  God,  and  leads  to  eternal  life.  He 
implores  God's  aid  against  the  thraldom  of  the  senses,  entreating 
him  to  crush,  break,  and  tear  in  pieces  the  evil  power. 

Arnold  has  a  wonderful  power  of  directly  communicating  to  us 
Arnold's     an  attitude  of  the  soul,  and  at  once  drawing  us  into  his 
manner,      own  feelings,  but  it  is  seldom  that  he  sueceeds  in  retain- 
ing our  sympathy.    He  is  so  far  in  advance  of  the  average  powers  of 
his  age,  that  we  feel  all  the  more  keenly  in  his  writings  any  of  the 
usual  offences  against  good  taste,  any  imperfections  of  form  and 
expression. 

Among  the  later  pietistic  poets  Gerhard  Tersteegen  is  specially 
remarkable.  He  was  a  common  man,  a  ribbon- maker  by  trade, 
but  at  Miihlheim  on  the  Ruhr  he  exercised  a  great  religious  in- 
fluence by  his  edifying  discourses,  and  lived  quite  in  the  spirit  of 
mysticism.  He  belonged  to  the  Reformed  (Calvinistic)  Church, 
and  died  in  1 769  at  the  age  of  seventy-two.  There  is  a 

Gr&TiiBif 

Tersteegen's  peculiar  calm  and  tenderness  in  his  poems.    He  says  he 
religious     would  like  to  become  a  child,  for  then  God  and  Para- 
poetry.      ^jse  WQUJ(J  come  mto  hjs  soul.     He  wishes  to  be  calm 
and  patient,  and  to  live  in  sweet  simplicity  without  much  enquiry 
or  much  thought.     He  would  live  like  a  true  pilgrim,  a  stranger  to 
the  world  and  its  cares,  for  he  knows  that  his  life  is  but  a  wander- 
ing to  the  great  Eternity. 

Unwillingly  we  turn  our  eyes  from  the  modest  mystic  Tersteegen 
Count  to  the  world-renowned  Count  Zinzendorf,  who  put 
Zinzendorf.  visible  symbols  in  the  place  of  the  mystical  flight  of 
the  soul  from  the  creatures  of  earth,  furnished  grossly  sensuous 
food  for  the  religious  imagination,  and  drew  Protestant  hymnology 
deep  into  the  slough  of  bad  taste.  Zinzendorf  was  born  in  Dres- 
den, but  acquired  a  spiritual  bias  for  life  among  the  Pietists  at 
Halle.  His  soul  lived  in  cheerful  certainty  of  salvation  and  in 

.  .     most  intimate  communion  with  the  Saviour.     He  or- 
Jfoundea 

the         ganized  the  Moravian  brotherhood  of  Herrnhut  on  a 

Moravian     system  derived  partly  from  monasticism,  and  partly 

from  the  early  Christian  communities.     He  succeeded 

in  spreading  its  members  as  one  order  over  the  old  and  new  world, 


ch.  X.]  Religion  and  Science.  349 

and  from  the  year  1734  he  established  for  them  a  theology  which 
dealt  only  with  the  person  of  Christ,  His  sufferings,  His  blood,  and 
His  wounds  ;  the  latter  became  the  object  .of  an  extravagant  wor- 
ship, for  which  Catholicism,  and  even  some  of  Gerhardt's  hymns 
borrowed  from  mediaeval  sources,  had  prepared  the  way.     As  a  poet, 
Zinzendorf  belongs  to  the  school  of  Scheffler.     He  could  improvise 
with  the  greatest  ease,  and  has  written  more  than   2000  poems  ; 
but  he  and  the  poets  of  his  community  who  succeeded  him,  con- 
temned perfection  of  form,  and  were  drawn  away  into     Moravian 
thoroughly  childish  twaddle.     In  verses  full  of  empty       hymn- 
wordiness,  they  sang  the  praises  of  the  Lamb,  and      writers, 
expressed  their  passion  for  the  Saviour,  and  their  ecstasy  over  His 
wounds.     Their  profane  familiarity  with  sacred  things  is  such,  that 
they  designate  the  Trinity  as  Papa  God,  Mama  God  (i.  e.  the  Holy 
Spirit),  and  Brother  Lamb. 

But  the  essential  characteristics  of  the  Moravian  brotherhood 
did  not  consist  of  such  blasphemous  follies ;  later  on    Cnaraoter. 
too,  as  these  began  to  give  general  offence,  they  were       istics 
more  and  more  modified.     The  distinguishing  mark        of  the 
of  the  Herrnhut  brothers,  that  which  in  the  second 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century  attracted  adherents  from  all  quarters, 
was  the  spirit  of  brotherly  love  which  united  them,  the  earnest  striving 
after  sanctification  in  which  they  all  shared,  and  the  bond  of  sym- 
pathy which  bound  together  all  the  members  throughout  Germany, 
England,  and  America.     They  represented  a  quiet  confederation 
of  pious  people,  which  maintained  itself  in  the  midst  of  a  hostile 
and  increasingly  free-thinking  age,  which  furnished  an  external 
rallying-point  for  Christians  of  the  same  opinions,  and  everywhere 
roused  respect  by  that  holy  simplicity  of  heart,  which  its  members 
esteemed  as  the  deepest   wisdom,  the  greatest  power,    and   the 
fairest  ornament. 

Besides  pietism  in  all  its  various  forms,  orthodoxy  also  found 
utterance  in  the  hymns  of  this  time  (about  1700).     The  Silesian 
pastor,  Benjamin  Schmolck,  was  a  most  fertile  writer    Ben*amin 
of  poetry  ;    sometimes  he  offers  beautiful    thoughts    Schmolck. 
well   expressed  in   flowing  verse,  but   he  frequently    circa  1700. 
proves  the  truth  of  his  own  saying :  '  If  the  trees  are  too  often 


35°  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature,  [Ch.  x. 

shaken  they  let  fall  unripe  fruit.'  He  offers  points  of  resem- 
blance to  Gerhardt  on  the  one  hand,  and,  like  the  Pietists,  to  the 
Song  of  Solomon  on  the  other.  He  strove  after  simplicity  and 
clearness,  but  often  degenerated  into  the  commonplace.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  several  other  poets  contemporary  with  him ; 
dry  common  sense,  which  had  not  been  wanting  even  in  the  earlier 
religious  poetry,  now  attained  great  importance,  owing  chiefly  to 
the  fact  that  it  offered  a  pleasing  contrast  to  mystic  extravagance, 
and  also  harmonised  more  with  the  increasing  enlightenment  of 
the  age. 

Hymn-writing  now  became  didactic  and  reflective,  and  endea- 
voured to  suit  itself  to  all  the  various  possible  situations  in  which 
poetry  might  be  acceptable  to  a  man.     Careful  attention  was  paid 
Hymns  for   to  tne  difference  of  persons  according  to  rank  and 
various      profession ;  in  1 7 1 6  a  Mecklenburg  clergyman  made 
classes.       a   couection   of  poems   for    147   various  vocations; 
in  1737,  a  Saxon  clergyman  published  a  Universal  Hymn-book,  in 
which  he  supplied  hymns  for  christenings,  for  complicated  law- 
suits, for  lameness,  blindness,  and  deafness,  for  anxiety  due  to  a  large 
family,  also  songs  for  nobles,  ministers,  officials,  lawyers,  surgeons, 
barbers,  fishermen,  drovers,  shopmen,  and  many  other  positions 
in  life.     In  an  advertisement  of  this  work  the   author  remarked 
that   there   were   still   wanting   songs   for  jugglers,  rope-dancers, 
conjurors,  thieves,  gipsies,  and  rogues,  and  begged  to  have  this 
want  supplied. 

Thus  in   the  subject-matter  of  hymns,  the  tendency  to  indi- 
vidualism asserted  itself  to  the  point  of  caricature, 
of  indi-      Tne  music  which  accompanied  them  fell  under  the 
viduaiism     same  dominating  influence.     The  Protestant  Church- 
in  hymn-     nvmn   of  the  sixteenth  century  had   been  popular, 
congregational  song,  but  in  the  seventeenth  century 
it  lost  this  character ;  the  popular  element  had  to  retire  before  a 
more  artificial  manner,  the  fetters  of  the  stanza  were  abandoned, 
and   greater  freedom   of  form  was   introduced,  together  with   a 
highly  emotional  and  declamatory  style. 

Even  the  choir  was  no  longer  supposed  to  express  the  general 
feeling  of  the  congregation,  but  to  give  a  characteristic  rendering  of 


ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  351 

every  feature  of  the  text.     The  chorus  was  supplemented  by  the 
aria,  which  \vas  not  sung  by  the  congregation,  but  by      similar 
the  trained  choir,  and  soon  became  secular  and  trivial     change  in 
in  character.      The  accompaniment  of  instrumental    the  Music- 
music,  which  had  formerly  been  totally  absent,  was  now  thought 
necessary  to  adorn  the  singing.     This  whole  movement  is  due  to 
Italian  influence,  and  especially  to  the  opera,  a  musical  form  which 
arose  in  Italy  and  had  for  its  chief  object  the  individualisation  of 
song.     Poetry  tried  to  adapt  itself  in  various  forms  to  the  needs 
of  the  musical  composers,  and  at  the  same  time  sought  to  derive 
some  advantage  for  itself  from  these  forms. 

Erdmann  Neumeister,  one  of  the  chief  opponents  of  Pietism, 
produced,  after  the  year  1705,  innumerable  Cantatas,  „         .  ,    , 
which  were  set  to  music  by  Johann  Sebastian  Bach.     Cantatas 
At  the  beginning  and  end  of  these  there  is  a  text  with  Bach's 
from   the   Sunday  Gospel,  or  an  old  church  hymn 
arranged  as  a  chorus  and  chorale,  and  thus  corresponding  to  the 
old  congregational  song ;  but  in  the  middle,  the  subjective  modern 
piety  finds  expression  in  recitatives,  arias,  duetts,  &c. 

Barthold  Heinrich  Brockes,  a  Town  Councillor  of  Hamburg, 
adopted  the   easy  rhyming   recitatives  of  the   texts  used   in  the 
Hamburg  opera,  and  adding  to  them  arias  and  ariosos,     Brockes' 
produced  those  poems  which  form  the  basis  of  his  work    •  irdisches 
entitled,  '  Earthly  Pleasure  in  God.'     In  this  poem  he   Vergnugen 
absorbs  himself,  like  Spec  and  others  of  his  stamp,  in 
all  the  detailed  life  of  nature  ;  he  tries  to  describe  it  faithfully  and 
exactly,    and   recognises   in   all   a   witness    to   the   wisdom    and 
goodness  of  the   Creator.     The  recitatives  expound  the  subject 
to   us,  the  arias  and  ariosos  are  devoted  to  natural  description 
and  pious  sentiment.     The  poet  describes  the  presence  of  music  in 
nature ;  the  twittering  descant  of  many  birds,  the  rippling  tenor 
of  the  crystal  drops  flowing  over  smooth  pebbles,  the  high  alto 
in  the  whispering  rustle  of  the  trees  and  bushes,  the  deep  bass  in 
the  pleasant  humming  of  many  thousand  bees  flying  after  honey. 
In   the   midst  of  so  much  harmony,  he  calls  on  his  heart  also 
to  let  its  songs  be  heard;  and  then  the  aria  falls  in  with  these 
words;— 


352  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

'  Sing,  my  soul,  the  Lord  His  praise, 
Who  in  His  great  wisdom's  ways 
Decks  the  world  so  gloriously.' 

Brockes   achieved  his  first  literary  success  in   1712,  with  the 
text  of  a  Passion-Oratorio.     The  Passion  music  had 

Brookes'     passe(j  mto  tne  protestant  Church  from  the  Catholic  ; 

text  to  a 

Passion.     t^e  text  °f  one  °f  tne  Gospels  was  divided  among 

Oratorio,  various  individuals,  and  sung  like  a  Psalm,  and  at 
171  '  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  oratorio  the  congre- 
gation would  sing  a  suitable  hymn.  In  the  latter  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century  this  psalmody  was  replaced  by  recitative,  and 
four-part  church-hymns  were  introduced  at  intervals.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century,  under  the  hands  of  the 
Hamburg  opera-poets  and  opera-composers,  the  German  Passion- 
music  assumed  quite  the  form  of  the  Italian  Oratorios ;  neither  the 
Scripture  words  nor  the  congregational  hymns  were  retained,  and 
when  the  clergy  remonstrated  against  this,  a  compromise  was 
effected,  and  either  the  Bible-words  or  the  church-hymns  were 
again  admitted.  Thus,  Brockes  has  put  rhymes  of  his  own 
invention  in  the  place  of  the  Gospel  words,  but  he  has  also 
woven  in  verses  of  Church-hymns.  As  in  the  earlier  Hamburg 
Passion-texts,  so  here  sentiment  finds  expression  in  the  arias  and 
ariosos ;  either  the  acting  characters  themselves  indulge  in  mono- 
logues, or  the  '  Daughter  of  Sion/  or  the  '  Faithful  Soul,'  is  intro- 
duced, and  gives  vent  to  feelings  and  reflections.  This  poem  of 
Brockes  is  a  work  of  great  imaginative  power  and  full  of  dramatic 
effects,  so  that  all  who  heard  it  must  have  been  quite  carried  away 
by  it.  The  poet  used  the  same  strong  means  which  Father 
Cochem  had  employed  to  render  the  life  and  sufferings  of  Christ 
as  touching  and  edifying  as  possible.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the 
book  enjoyed  great  popularity,  was  translated  into  foreign  languages, 
and  set  to  music  by  several  composers,  amongst  others,  by  Handel. 
Bach's  Sebastian  Bach  borrowed  from  it  the  words  for  the 
Passion-  arias  in  his  St.  John's  Passion ;  he,  however,  did  away 

Oratorios.  wjth  ajj  operatic  features,  and  in  his  St.  Matthew's 
Passion  (1729),  brought  this  class  of  music  to  the  highest  point  of 
perfection.  The  text  for  the  latter  was  furnished  by  an  insig- 


Ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  353 

nificant  Leipzig  writer,  Henrici  by  name.  He  supplied  the 
elements  which  Bach  required :  on  the  one  hand  the  fixed  church 
tradition,  the  congregational  chorales,  and  the  simple  narrative 
of  the  Evangelists,  which  was  rendered  dramatic  by  assigning  the 
cries  of  the  populace  to  the  chorus,  and  the  separate  speeches  to 
solo  singers ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  emotional  reflections  on  the 
Passion  of  Christ,  or  expressing  the  feelings  of  the  human  soul 
conscious  of  its  sin,  longing  for  redemption,  and  filled  with 
gratitude  to  the  Saviour.  There  is  hardly  a  trace  in  Henrici's 
work  of  mystical  and  pietistic  tendencies,  or  of  expressions 
borrowed  from  the  Song  of  Solomon;  all  frivolous  and  trivial 
elements  are  banished,  and  the  whole  stands  on  about  the  same 
level  as  Gerhardt's  hymn :  '  Ein  Lammlein  geht  und  tragt  die 
Schuld.'  Gerhardt's  words  too  are  chiefly  used  in  the  chorales. 

The  depth  of  feeling  revealed  in  Bach's  Passion-music  shows 
us  that  he  too  was  under  the  influence  of  that  emotional  revival 
which  had  set  in  since  Gerhardt's  time  and  which  had  been  due  in 
the  first  place  to  Pietism. 

Handel  stands  on  quite  different  ground  from  Bach;  he  dived 
deep  into  secular  music,  to  which  Bach  all  his  life 
remained  a  stranger.  He  passed  from  the  Opera  to 
the  Oratorio.  Till  1716  Handel  composed  the  music  for  pietistic 
texts,  and  for  Passion-oratorios  in  the  Hamburg  operatic  style;  then, 
however,  he  turned  to  the  more  vigorous  words  of  the  Psalms,  and 
finally  discarded  the  sentimental  conception  of  the  Saviour  for  the 
Messiah  of  the  old  Hebrew  prophets.  His  immortal  Oratorio  of 
that  name  stands  in  spirit  and  aim  far  higher  than  all  the  other 
Passion-oratorios,  and  is  a  grand  hymn  on  Christianity.  In  his 
conception  of  Christianity  and  of  classical  antiquity,  as  revealed  in 
his  '  Messiah,'  and  in  his  musical  dramas  of  biblical  and  classical 
origin,  Handel  is  a  true  representative  of  the  age  of  enlightenment 
and  of  classical  studies.  Bach  represents  purely  German  art,  but 
Handel  owed  much  to  the  Italians.  The  genius  of  the  former  is 
national,  that  of  the  latter,  cosmopolitan. 

The  same  difference  of  national  and  international  genius  is 
apparent  between  Spener  and  Leibniz  ;  but  in  this  age  all  differences 
were  merged  in  the  common  effort,  conscious  or  unconscious,  to  free 

A  a 


354  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

man  from  traditional  authority,  and  make  him  self-dependent.    The 

power  of  feeling  strengthened  individuality  in  sacred 
Increasing  ,  .         ,  ..  .  .    ,.   .,     ,. 

independ-     Poetl7  and  music,  while  in  science  individuality  was 

ence  in       strengthened  by  the  power  of  thought.     Feeling  and 
religion  and  thought  combined  together  to  break  the  power  of  the 

Church,  of  law,  and  of  every  authority  generally 
which  laid  claim  to  the  intellectual  guidance  of  the  individual ;  every 
man  now  sought  for  himself  the  way  to  salvation. 

Contemporary  with  Spener  we  observe  a  remarkable  activity  in  the 

field  of  secular  learning.     Spener  was  born  in  1635  ; 

Pufendorf,  Stieler,  and  Schilter  in  1632,  Morhof  in  1639, 
Leibniz  in  1646.     Samuel  Pufendorf  was  a  strong  patriot,  and  an 
elegant  Latin  author.    In  a  spirited  satire  he  ridiculed  the  monstrosity 
of  the  German  imperial  constitution  of  that  day,  and  endeavoured  to 
liberate  German  statesmanship  from  the  influence  of  theology;  he  de- 
manded liberty  of  conscience  for  the  individual,  and  the  subordination 
of  the  Church  to  state-supervision,  while  he  also  defended  the  idea  of 
a  Protestant  union.    He  composed  in  uncouth  German  a  History  of 
European  States,  from  the  political  point  of  view,  and  wrote  in  digni- 
fied Latin  the  history  of  the  Great  Kurfurst  of  Brandenburg.  Kaspar 
Stieler       von  Stieler  published  a  carefully  compiled  German 
Schilter,      dictionary,  the  first  complete  one  since  the  attempts  of 
and         the  1 6th  century.     Johann  Schilter  undertook  a  great 

compilation  of  early  German,  and  especially  of  Old 
High-German  literary  monuments.  Daniel  Morhof  sketched  the 
history  of  German  and  foreign  poetry.  In  all  branches  of  learning, 
energetic  efforts  were  made  to  retrieve  what  had  been  lost  through 
the  war,  and  no  one  achieved  more  in  this  respect  than  Leibniz,  the 
founder  of  German  rationalism.  Leibniz  commanded  all  the  know- 
ledge of  his  own  and  of  previous  ages,  and  sought  to  systematize 
this  knowledge  and  turn  it  to  the  good  of  mankind. 

Leibniz  is  the  first  great  European  name  that  Germany  can  show 

in  the  history  of  philosophy  since  the  Middle  Ages, 

since  the  Dominican  Albert  the  Great  (p.  229). 
And  as  Albert  was  the  mediator  between  Greek  Philosophy  and  the 
Church,  so  Leibniz  sought  to  effect  a  compromise  between  religion 
and  the  Anglo-French  rationalism  of  the  seventeenth  century.  lie 


Ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  355 

assumed,  in  a  characteristically  German  manner,  a  hostile  attitude 
towards  the  contemporary  science  of  other  countries,  an  attitude 
which  is  in  some  measure  explained  by  the  views  prevalent  at  that 
time  in  Germany,  views  in  which  he  himself  participated.  The 
Anglo-French  philosophy  was  mathematical  and  mechanical,  and  to 
some  extent  materialistic  ;  in  contrast  to  this,  Leibniz,  himself  also 
a  great  mathematician  and  mathematical  physicist,  but  at  the  same 
time  a  friend  of  Spener,  the  founder  of  German  Pietism,  established 
the  claims  of  the  inner  life  and  of  the  unseen  world.  He  placed 
force  in  antithesis  to  matter.  The  Frenchman 

His 

Gassendi  had  successfully  revived  the  ancient  doctrine     ,„        h 
of  atoms;  Leibniz  transformed  the  atoms  into  souls, 
and  thus  arrived  at  the  idea  of  his  '  Monads.'    The  number  of  these 
is  infinite,  and  each  has  its  own  individuality,  in  which  it  mirrors 
the  whole  world ;  all  of  them  are  in  process  of  unceasing  change, 
and  all  are  harmoniously  determined  by  their  common  cause,  the 
Divine  Will.     Leibniz  found  an  explanation  of  the  universe  in  the 
assumption  of  innumerable  individuals,  each  of  the  nature  of  a  soul. 
Soul  is  thus  to  him  the  essence  of  things.     The  conception  of  the 

individual    soul,   round    which    the    whole    theology    , 

°J     Its  connec- 
and  religious  poetry  of  the  time  turns,  asserted  its     tion  with 

supremacy  also  in  Leibniz's  imagination,  and  became    Mysticism 

the  centre  of  his  philosophy.     And  more  than  this:  for      _.an. 

•    '  Pietism, 

the  human  soul,  according  to  his  view,  is  not  only  a 

mirror  of  the  world,  but  also  an  image  of  God,  and  intended  to  hold 
communion  with  its   Creator.     Thus    Leibniz  expressly  adopted 
the  mystical  doctrines  of  submission  to  God,  and  of  the  presence  of 
God  in  the  heart.     Love  of  God  was  to  him  religion ;  from  love 
sprang    morality   and    right.      Here    Leibniz's   connection   with 
Mysticism  and  Pietism  is  clearly  visible,  and  he  also  reduced  to  a 
system  that  Optimism  which  so  attracted  us  in  the  writings  of  Paul 
Gerhardt.     The  peaceable,  tolerant  disposition  which 
animated  the  best  men  of  the  age,  was  shared  by    Optimism, 
Leibniz.     He  worked  hard  to  effect  a  union  of  the     tolerance, 

various  Protestant  sects,  and  for  years  exerted  himself 

patriotism. 

in  the  cause  of  a  reunion  of  Protestants  and  Catholics. 

He  was  an  untiring  and  subtle  negotiator,  a  man  full  of  schemes, 

A  a  2 


356  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  X. 

vrak  and  somewhat  naive  as  a  politician,  but   a   good  patriot 

according  to  his  lights.     He  was  unwearied   in  advocating  the 

foundation  of  learned  societies,  as  a  means  of  raising  German 

science;    the    Berlin   Academy,    founded    in    1700,    is    a   living 

His  efforts    monument   to    tms   day    of  his  endeavours   in   this 

to  raise       direction.    And  even  though  he  wrote  mostly  in  Latin 

German      an<j  French;  so  as  to  attract  the  attention  of  cultivated 

people  and  of  foreigners,   yet  he  had  the  cause  of 

the  German  language  at  heart.     He  condemned  the  excessive  use 

of  foreign  words,  and  took  up  Schottelius'  judicious  schemes  for 

a   German   Dictionary.      His  own   German   prose  has   about   it 

something  fresh,  clever  and  animated,  praise  that  cannot  be  given 

to  many  of  his  colleagues. 

Leibniz,  as  we  know,  had  found  patrons  in  the  Guelphs,  and 

Leibniz      ^vec^  ^O1  ^ortv  years  as  librarian  at  Hanover.     All  the 

patronised    three  branches  of  the  Guelph  line  made  him  their 

by  the       historiographer ;  in  Berlin  a  Guelph  princess,  Queen 

Sophie    Charlotte,    helped    him     to    carry    out    his 

schemes.     Yet  he  died  alone  in   1716,  and    but  little  zeal  was 

shown  in  furthering  the  publication  of  his  literary  remains.     His 

chief  philosophical  work  did  not  appear  till  1765,  and  his  History 

of  the  mediaeval  Empire  not  till  our  century. 

Through  aristocratic  patronage  Leibniz  was  raised  above  the 
intrigues  of  the  Universities,  but  in  consequence  of  this  he  failed  to 
exercise  a  direct  influence  on  the  younger  generation.     This  in- 
fluence which  he  missed,  fell  to  the  lot  of  his  successors,  Christian 
Thomasius  and  Christian  Wolff.    The  former  was  born  in  1655,  the 
latter  in  1679.    The  former  was  a  follower  of  Pufendorf,  the  latter  of 
Leibniz.   Both  helped  to  popularise  their  great  predecessors,  and  to 
introduce  their  thoughts  into  the  curriculum  of  academic  instruction. 
Thomasius  was  a  true  apostle  of  '  Enlightenment'  {Aufkl&rung} 
Christian     in  the  ordinary  sense.     He  hated  the  Middle  Ages, 

Thomasius    an(j  ranke(j  Hans  Sachs  before  Homer.     He  always 

a  champion          r         ,  .  , 

of '  Eniight-  P^ferred  an  appeal  to  a  man  s  common-sense  to  a 

enment.1  strictly  scientific  proof,  and  laid  great  stress  on  the 
general  utility  of  science.  He  was  no  mediator  between  the  old 
ideas  and  the  new  like  Leibniz,  but  an  innovator,  a  champion  of 


Ch.  x.]  Religion  and  Science.  357 

so-called  enlightened  views,  an  intellectual  liberator.  The  monsters 
whom  he  wished  to  vanquish  were  either  prejudices,  or  pedantry,  and 
hypocrisy.  He  wished  to  follow  the  French  example,  to  give  to  the 
learned  classes  a  practical  secular  training,  and  to  break  down  the 
barriers  of  intellectual  aristocracy.  He  was  the  first  University 
teacher  who  gave  a  course  of  lectures  in  German ;  this  was  in  the 

winter  term  of  1687-88.     He  was  the  first  to  publish 

_  <        «  Starts  the 

a  literary  periodical  in  German,  i.  e.  the  '  Monatsge-         ^.^ 

sprache/  which  appeared  in  the  years  1688-89.     As      literary 
Spener   may   be   said   to  have   carried   on    Luther's    Periodlcal 

.  in  German. 

religious   movement,   so  Tnomasius    carried    on   his 
pamphleteering  and  extended  it  to  a  wider  sphere.    His  natural  style 
was  plain-spoken  and  satirical ;  he  did  indeed  pass  through  a  piet- 
istic  period,  in  which  he  became  a  mystic  and  strove  to  acquire  a 
more  serious  style,  but  later  on  he  returned  to  his  old  manner. 

In  contrast  to  Thomasius,  Christian  Wolff  had  nothing  of  the 
impetuous  innovator  and  nothing  of  the  mystic  about     Christian 
him.     His  intellectual  development  took  the  steady      "Wolff,  a 
direction   of  a   consistent   rationalism.     His    system    ratlonallst- 
claimed  to  comprehend  the  whole  world  by  means  of  reason,  and 
yet  could  not  make  any  advance  in  knowledge  without  secretly 

taking   counsel   of  experience.      By  the  aid  of  the  „ 

He  modified 
Leibnizian   ideas,  somewhat   diluted,  Wolff  founded         an<i 

a  new  scholasticism,  a  system  which  could  be  easily  popularised 
expounded,  and  which  impelled  even  average  intellects       . 
to  thoroughness  of  thought   and  argument,  and  to 
methodical  and  clear  demonstration ;  moreover,  his  system  could 
also  live  in  peace  with  orthodoxy,  and  hence  it  gradually  esta- 
blished itself  in  all  the  German   Universities.     Wolff  wrote  and 
lectured  in  German,  and   by  a  carefully  formed  terminology  he 
achieved  what  Leibniz  had  longed  for,  and  rendered  it  possible 
for  Germans  to  philosophise  in  their  own  language.     He  took  up  and 
carried  on  the  work  of  the  mediaeval  mystics,  and  rendered  the  Ger- 
man language  capable  of  moving  easily  in  the  realm  His  tendency 
of  ideas.     In   his  philosophy  Wolff  paid  his  tribute      to  indi- 
to  the  prevalent  tendency  of  glorifying  the  individual.    vlduallsm- 
According  to  him,  God  has  regulated  everything  in  the  world  for  the 


358  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  .X. 

advantage  of  man,  and  to  discern  in  all  things  the  beneficent  in- 
tention of  the  Creator  is  man's  task,  and  forms  the  basis  of  religion. 
Wolffs  views  are  clearly  related  to  those  of  Gerhardt  and  Brockes. 
Even  the  state  is  to  him  only  a  police  institution  for  the  advantage 
of  the  individual.  But  this  individual  himself,  for  whose  happiness 
everything  is  calculated,  has,  according  to  Wolffs  ideal,  no  heart, 
but  only  intellect ;  rational  reflection  is  his  sole  motive  of  action. 
Thus  Wolffs  rationalism  stands  in  its  conception  of  the  moral 
world  in  direct  antagonism  to  Spener's  pietism;  and  the  two 
systems  were  actually  to  come  into  collision,  as  we  shall  see. 

Pufendorf,  Leibniz,  and  Thomasius  were  Saxons.     All  of  these, 

Saxony  an<^  besides  them  August  Hermann  Francke,  Spener's 
and  most  distinguished  disciple,  and  later  on  Christian 

Prussia.      Wolff  himself,  found   their  first  footing  in  Leipzig. 

But  they  were  all  in  some  way  or  other  rejected  by  Leipzig,  and 

being  driven  away  from  there  they  all  seemed  to  find  in  Prussia 

the  best  field  for  their  activity  and  influence.     Pufendorf  had  been 

since   1688  in  Berlin;    in   1690  Thomasius   had   already  begun 

Intellectual  lecturing  at  the  Ritter-Academie  in  Halle;   in  1691 

supremacy    Spener    exchanged    Dresden    for    Berlin;    in    1692 

of  Prussia    jrrancke  came  to  Halle,  and  two  years  later  the  new 

Frederick  I.    University  was  opened  there,  at  which  he  and  Tho- 

orowned     masius  were   teachers.      In  the  year  1700    Leibniz 

King,  1701.  wag  ma(je  President  of  the  Berlin  Academy,  and  in 

1706  Wolff  received  a  professorship  at  Halle.     Under  the  liberal 

government  of  its  first  king,  Prussia  decidedly  took  the  lead  in 

the  intellectual  movement. 

But  under  the  parsimonious  soldier-king,  Frederick  William  I., 

all  this  was  changed.     The  young  academy  declined ; 
Change  ,      .        ,  . 

under        science,  as  such,  found  no  patronage ;  pietism  alone 

Frederick    flourished,  and  its  outward  power  did  not  contribute 

William  I.,  to  jts  mner  improvement.    Wolffs  pietistic  colleagues 
1713-1740.  ,    . 

sought  to  overthrow  him,  and  through  mean  intrigues 

succeeded  in  obtaining  a  cabinet  decree  from  the  king,  deposing 
the  philosopher  and  banishing  him  from  Prussia  on  pain  of 
hanging  (1723). 

Contemporary   with   this  intellectual  retrogression  in   Prussia 


Ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste,  359 

Saxony  rose  again  to    importance.      From   the   year   1724    the 
East-Prussian     Gottsched    represented   the  Wolffian     Literary 
philosophy  in  Leipzig,  and  applied  its  principles  to   importance 
questions  of  taste  in  German  poetry.     Through  him    of  LeiPzie- 
and  his  pupils  the  University  of  Leipzig  acquired  great  literary 
fame  for  a  few  decades. 


THE  REFINEMENT  OF  POPULAR  TASTE. 

The  history  of  religious  poetry  is  inseparably  connected  with 
the  development  of  religion,  but  many  writers  of  this  period  con- 
tributed to  the  store  of  sacred  poetry  who  were  not  clergymen  by 
profession,  nor  exclusively  religious  poets.  Religious  poetry  is  the 
strong  point  of  this  period ;  in  the  secular  poetry  of  the  time  we 
find  nothing  to  be  compared  with  the  rise  of  the  evangelical  church- 
hymn,  with  the  wide  popularity  of  Paul  Gerhardt's  hymns,  with 
the  tender  grace  of  Spec,  and  the  thoughtfulness  of  Scheffler.  Of 
the  manifold  productions  of  a  poet  like  George  Neumark,  who 
enjoyed  great  reputation  in  his  day,  hardly  anything  has  survived 
but  the  beautiful  hymn :  '  Wer  nur  den  lieben  Gott  lasst  walten.' 

But  just  as  in  religious  lyric  poetry  the  unbroken  tradition  of 
the  sixteenth  century  revived  to  new  vigour  as  soon  as  the  war 
was  over,  so  in  secular  poetry  satire  once  more  made  its  appear- 
ance, and  introduced  a  popular  element  into  the  pedantic  scholar- 
poetry  of  the  time.  And  as  individual  feeling  was  the  most  marked 
characteristic  of  the  religious  poetry,  so  individual  criticism  was 
the  strongest  feature  of  the  secular  poetry  of  this  new  period.  In 
the  preachers  Schuppius  and  Abraham  a  Sancta  Predomin- 
Clara,  and  in  the  law-students,  Pufendorf  and  Tho-  ance  of  the 
masius,  we  already  noticed  a  strong  tendency  to  Satire, 
satire,  and  this  tendency  becomes  still  more  apparent  in  the  secular 
poets.  Satires  were  written  in  strophes,  in  Alexandrines,  in  prose, 
and  even  in  the  old  despised  rhymed  couplets  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  church  -  hymn  and  the  satire  now  exercised  the 
greatest  power  over  the  nation.  They  were  both  a  legacy  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  had  struck  the  deepest  roots  in  all  classes  of 
the  people  ;  they  both  have  their  origin  in  moral  pathos,  which  in 


360  The  Daivn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.x. 

the  hymn  breathes  devout  aspiration,  and  in  the  satire  criticises 
reality  from  an  ideal  standpoint,  in  a  bitter  or  a  laughing  mood ; 
and  they  are  both  essentially  German  in  tone,  and  carry  on  the 
popular  style  of  the  sixteenth  century.  These  two  forms  of  writing 
held  sway  in  the  coming  period  till  the  death  of  Gellert  and 
Rabener,  who  are  the  last  representatives  of  this  popular  tendency. 
Parallel  German  poetry  in  the  seventeenth  century  seems  at 

between      firs[  sight  like  a  wrestling-ground  of  foreign  fashions, 

costumes      .  .  .       .  c   ,    ^    . 

d literary  J       as  was         case  ln        costumes  of  that  time;  and 

styles  of      indeed  a  parallel  might  fitly  be  drawn  between  the 
this  period,  costumes  and  the  literary  styles  of  this  period. 

About  1600  the  Spanish  costume,  close-fitting,  stiff,  and  elegant 
to  excess,  reigned  supreme.  In  the  Thirty  Years'  War  this  affectation 
was  followed  by  naturalism;  stiffness  gave  way  to  comfort  and 
usefulness,  and  the  courtier's  costume  was  replaced  by  a  martial 
garb.  Under  Louis  XIV.  naturalism  was  dismissed,  and  fashion 
once  more  made  everything  courtly  and  magnificent,  stately  and 
precise.  It  was  not  till  the  eighteenth  century  that  opposition  began 
to  be  roused  in  Germany;  King  Frederick  William  I.  of  Prussia 
invented  the  queue  (Zopf},  and  in  it  created  a  German  symbol  of 
that  stern  and  sober  respectability,  which  prefers  the  practical  to  the 
beautiful;  he  also  took  a  step  towards  naturalism  in  making  people 
wear  their  own  instead  of  false  hair. 

All  these  fashions  are  paralleled  in  the  literary  system  of  the  time ; 
there  too  we  see  mannerism  succeeded  by  naturalism,  and  this  in 
turn  followed  by  the  French  classicism  of  the  age  of  Louis  XIV. 
which  finally  gave  place  to  a  popular  tendency.  But  the  popular 
tendency  in  literature  did  not  only  come  to  light  with  Frederick 

Kise  of  a     William  I.;  it  had  already  been  extant  for  a  long  time 

popular  in  literature  and  in  life,  but  had  not  excited  much 
tendency,  attention  and  found  but  slight  and  passing  favour 
with  the  nobility  or  the  courts.  Still  this  popular  tendency  steadily 
gained  ground,  and  all  the  foreign  influences  which  were  apparently 
adverse  to  it,  all  the  bad  taste  and  foolish  imitation  which  flourished 
for  a  time,  in  the  end  only  contributed  to  the  refinement  of  this 
popular  taste. 

If  we  consider  the  changes  in  general  taste  more  closely,  we  shall 


Ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  361 

observe,   first  of  all,  corresponding  to   the  Spanish  costume,  a 
literary  style  which  bore  different  names  in  the  various  _ 

•      J  The  affected 

literatures   of    Europe,    but   which   was    everywhere      styie  m 
of  the  same  character.     In  Spain  it  was  called  estilo      various 
culto,  '  the   cultivated   style/  or   Gongorism,  after  the   literatures- 
poet,  Gongora;    in  Italy  Marim'sm,   after  the  poet,  Marini;    in 
England    Euphuism,    after    John   Lyly's    novel,    'Euphues;'    in 
France  the   same   style  appears  in    connection  with   the  beaux- 
esprits  and  the  literary  ladies,  the  Precieuses  who  were  made  '  Pre'- 
cieuses  Ridicules '  by  Moliere,  when  the  fashion  had  reached  its 
decline.     In   Germany  this  fashion  is  spoken  of  as  the  'Italian 
style  '  or  else  simply  as  '  bombast '  (Schwulsf). 

Bombast  is  the  Spanish  fashion  in  literature.  This  style 
originally  developed  itself  in  the  province  of  conver-  ^he  bom- 
sation  and  of  letters.  It  was  the  incense  offered  to  bastic  style 
gentlemen  of  rank,  or  to  ladies ;  it  was  a  language  of  ^  Germany, 
flattery  and  servility,  wishing  to  keep  as  far-away  as  possible  from 
the  talk  of  the  people,  and  aiming  at  being  uncommon,  choice, 
and  witty.  The  wildest  epithets  were  coined,  and  conversation  and 
writing  were  loaded  with  metaphors,  plays  on  words,  exaggerated 
expressions,  remote  allusions,  far-fetched  ideas,  and  subtle  antitheses; 
hence  this  style  frequently  resulted  in  artificiality,  eccentricity, 
obscurity,  and  bad  taste.  Instead  of  the  sun,  poets  said,  'the  torch 
of  heaven;'  instead  of  the  sea,  '  the  salt  foam  of  the  waves;'  instead 
of  blood,  '  purple  ink,'  or  '  milk  of  life.'  Love  is  called  the  'golden 
light  and  eye  of  this  world,  the  sapphire,  the  vault  of  Heaven.'  A 
lover,  who  cannot  forget  his  lady,  remarks  that  the  soap  of  scorn 
is  not  capable  of  washing  out  her  image  from  his  heart.  In  a 
tragedy  written  about  this  time  we  find  the  following:  '  If  mothers 
sometimes  hurt  us,  it  is  but  a  spoonful  of  pain,  which  cannot 
exhaust  the  sea  of  their  goodness  to  us.' 

The  sublime  here  passes  into  the  ridiculous.  Nevertheless, 
this  fashion  marks  the  beginning  of  the  moral  and  literary  in- 
fluence of  women  in  modern  society,  and  the  introduction  of  ir.ore 
refined  manners  among  the  men  who  bowed  to  their  judgment. 
Bombast  was  the  cradle  of  modern  gallantry,  and  of  modern 
politeness.  It  holds  the  same  place  in  literature  as  the  baroque 


362  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  X. 

style  does  in  art.  Like  the  latter  it  was  international,  and  like 
the  latter  it  went  hand  in  hand  with  ecclesiastical  and  political 
absolutism.  Its  source  may  be  traced  very  far  back. 

Luther  roused  the  masses  of  the  people  to  activity.     The  Re- 
formation and  the  German  Renaissance,  as  well  as 
character  of  ^  German  art  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries, 
the  Eefor-    as  represented  in  Dtirer,  Holbein,  and  Hans  Sachs, 
mation  and  rested  on  a  popular  basis ;  they  were  determined  by 
in  Germany  t^ie  towns»  t^16  middle-classes,  the  people,  and  are  all 
marked  by  stern  and  manly  characteristics.     But  as 
early  as  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  certain  feminine 
Aristocr  ti    asPects  °^  numan  nature  begin  to  appear  again.    First 
movement    in  Spain  and  then  in  Italy  there  arose  a  strong  desire 
in  the  16th  for   personal    distinctions    and   outward    adornment, 
n  ury.      Titles  came  up,  and  cumbrous  designations  took  the 
place  of  a  simple  mode  of  address  in  letters  and  in  conversation. 
Men  separated  themselves  from  those  whom  they  thought  lower 
in  rank;  those  who  considered  themselves  equals  sought  to  add 
to   their   importance   by  forming    themselves  into   societies   and 
academies,  and  aspired,  above  all  things,  to  sun  themselves  in  the 
light  of  royalty.     Art  became  aristocratic,  academic,  and  courtly. 
Even  God,  it  was  thought,  must  receive  the  faithful  in  His  house 
with  princely  splendour.     The  Jesuits  were   the   leaders  of  the 
ecclesiastical  reaction  of  the  sixteenth  century,  as  the  Mendicant 
Orders  had  been  in  the  thirteenth ;  and  wherever  the  Jesuits  pene- 
trated they  brought  with  them  the  splendour  of  their  churches, 
the   pomp  of  their   ceremonies,  and    the   magnificence   of   their 
theatrical  spectacles.     A  love  of  luxury  and  ornament  seized  on 
all  spheres  of  life.     Even  the  scholars  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
sixteenth  century  began   in  their  Latin  style  to  aim  at  the  un- 
common; they  no  longer  took  the  Latin  of  classical  writers,  but 
that  of  pre-classical   and  post-classical  epochs  as  their  model; 
Cicero  retired  into  the  background,  and  Tacitus  and  the  orators 
and  Fathers  of  the  Hadrianic  and  following  times  were  set  up  as 
patterns;    instead   of  system    and   perspicuity,  writers  now  pre- 
ferred obscurity,  affected  brevity,  and  the  bombast  of  the  African 
LatinisU. 


ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  363 

Society  now  sought  for  some  diversions  to  fill  its  unbroken 
leisure.  The  ruder  pleasures  were  not  agreeable  to  the  ladies ; 
games,  masquerades,  and  all  kinds  of  refined  amusements  were  more 
to  their  taste,  and  what  they  were  naturally  most  interested  in  was 
the  affairs  of  love.  But  the  usual  ceremonies  and  usual  phrases  of 
conversation  were  soon  exhausted,  and  something  more  exciting  was 
demanded ;  accordingly,  sentimental  affectation  of  pastoral  life  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  representation  of  horrors  on  the  other,  now 
came  into  vogue.  The  literature  of  this  period  shows  Mannerism 
us  mannerism  in  the  idyll  and  naturalism  in  tragedy,  and  natu- 

And  in  poetry  and  art  Pietism  endeavoured  to  assert     ralism  ^ 
..  „         .,      .  ,        .  ..    j         literature. 

its  supremacy  over  all  aesthetic  tendencies;  it  do- 
minated a  poet  like  Tasso,  and  painters  like  Guido  Reni  and 
Caravaggio.  This  religiosity  could  furnish,  on  the  one  hand,  the 
raptures  of  ecstatic  souls,  on  the  other,  the  horrors  of  martyrdom ; 
the  beginning  of  the  Saviour's  life  supplied  an  idyll,  while  the  end 
afforded  the  most  affecting  tragedy.  Friedrich  Spec  owed  his 
literary  fame  to  this  mixture  of  aestheticism  with  sentimental 
piety,  and  a  number  of  Protestant  poets  followed  his  example;  if 
in  his  own  writings  sentimentality  preponderates,  in  those  of  Count 
Zinzendorf,  on  the  contrary,  naturalism  is  carried  to  extremes. 
Pietism,  since  it  could  embrace  such  extremes,  might  be  truly 
called  Catholic. 

These  two  currents  of  sentimental  aestheticism  and  crude 
naturalism,  represented  respectively  in  Spec  and  Zinzendorf,  were 
by  no  means  confined  to  the  religious  writing  of  this  period ;  they 
are  also  strongly  marked  in  secular  literature,  where  the  one  was 
represented  in  affected  idyllic  poetry,  the  other  in  realistic  tragedy, 
both  being  combined  with  a  certain  amount  of  bombast. 

The  classical  idyll  had  already  been  revived  in  the  Carlovingian 
period.     It  is  represented   in  Middle  High-German       idyllic 
poetry  by  Neidhart's  songs  and  by  the  village-stories.       poetry. 
It  came  up  again  with  Petrarch,  and  remained  in  power  during 
the  whole  of  the  Renaissance,  reaching  its  zenith  in  the  baroque 
period.     The   pastoral   affectation   swamped   lyric   poetry,   made 
itself  at  home  in  the  novel,  and  even  gained  a  place  in  the  drama. 
Tasso  and  Guarini  furnished  the  chief  models  for  the  pastoral 


364  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  X. 

drama,  the  former  in  his  '  Aminta,'  the  latter  in  his  '  Pastor  Fido.' 
For  the  pastoral  romance,  which  always  combined  prose  narrative 
with  inserted  poems,  the  recognised  authorities  were  the  Spanish 
romance  'Diana,'  by  Montemayor  (1542),  Sir  Philip  Sydney's 
'Arcadia'  (1590),  and  the  Frenchman  d'Urfe"'s 'Astraea'  (1610). 
The  pastoral  costume  soon  became  obligatory  for  love-poems ; 
every  lyric  poet  played  the  pipe,  pretended  to  be  leading  lambs 
to  pasture,  and  protested  that  he  had  written  his  love's  name 
or  even  whole  poems  in  the  bark  of  the  trees.  Opitz  calls  himself 
a  shepherd  of  the  Rhine,  and  thus  describes  the  pains  of  love 
which  he  feels :  '  The  flock  it  has  grown  thin,  and  I  am  no  longer 
I.'  Under  the  mask  of  Corydon,  he  tells  his  'dearest  Field- 
goddess,'  that  he  is  but  a  peasant-boy.  Fleming,  too,  sometimes 
adopts  the  guise  of  a  shepherd.  The  poets  of  Nurnberg  and 
KCnigsberg,  and  the  members  of  the  Order  of  Elbe- Swans  in 
Hamburg  assumed  shepherd-names ;  in  Nurnberg  the  pastoral 
fashion  gained  a  specially  strong  hold.  The  customary  wedding 
poems  were  now  frequently  clothed  in  bucolic  form,  and  the 
number  of  German  pastoral  poems  was  legion.  They  are  not 
the  most  unpleasing  portion  of  the  poetry  of  the  seventeenth 
century ;  some  of  them  are  very  pretty  and  graceful,  though  one 
must  always  be  prepared  for  occasional  barbarisms.  They  aim  at 
ease  and  simplicity,  and  are,  on  the  whole,  tolerably  free  from 
bombast.  Weckherlin,  it  is  true,  had  brought  a  few  new  flowers 
of  speech  from  England,  and  adorned  his  love-poems  with  them ; 
and  the  same  ornaments  blossomed  afresh  in  Opitz,  who  really 
introduced  the  fantastic  style  into  Germany.  But,  generally  speak- 
ing, the  verse  of  this  period  is  freer  from  bombast  and  affectation 
Idyllic  tnan  tne  pastoral  prose,  that  is  to  say,  the  idyllic 
prose-  narratives.  These  had  their  origin  in  the  pastoral 
narratives.  romance>  an(j  thdr  essence  lay  in  painting  minute 
particulars  in  full  detail,  and  in  eking  out  a  meagre  theme  with 
all  sorts  of  flourishes  and  embellishments.  Nature  and  love  were 
the  chief  subjects  of  these  romances,  and  the  high-flown  prose 
was  supposed  to  deepen  the  sympathy  of  the  reader.  If  we  open 
Opitz's  Hercynia,  we  come  at  once  on  such  phrases  as :  '  Night, 
the  mother  of  the  stars ; '  or,  '  The  eye  of  the  world,  the  sun ; '  or, 


Ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  365 

'  The  guide  of  the  body,  the  mind ; '  or  the  reader  is  warned  that 
if  he  wishes  to  flee  love,  he  must  sail  with  blindfolded  eyes  and 
stopped  ears,  to  the  harbour  of  Sorrow,  to  Patience,  who  with  her 
mother,  Time,  can  alone  give  him  the  wished-for  deliverance. 
The  close  observation  of  external  Nature  led  to  the  imitation  of 
natural  sounds  and  noises,  in  which  the  Niirnberg  poets  specially 
distinguished  themselves,  and  though  this  may  seem  puerile  to  us,  yet 
it  reveals  a  new  flexibility  in  the  language.  Philip  von  Zesen  led 
the  pastoral  romance  back  to  a  field  which  had  already  been 
cultivated  by  the  popular  art  of  the  sixteenth  century.  zesen's 
His '  Adriatische  Rosemund'  (1645)  reminds  us  of Jorg  'Adriatische 
Wickram's  'Good  and  bad  neighbours'  (see  p.  297),  Kosemund.' 
for  it  moves  in  the  sphere  of  every-day  life,  and  the  chief  event 
which  it  narrates  is  the  separation  of  two  lovers,  Rosemund  and 
Markhold.  And  these  lovers  are  not  transferred  into  a  remote 
and  ideal  world;  Rosemund  comes  from  Venice  and  lives  in 
Amsterdam,  and  Markhold  is  about  to  journey  to  Paris.  During 
his  absence,  the  love-sick  Rosamund  transports  herself  into  an 
artificial  pastoral  life,  and  bleu  mourant,  the  colour  of  loyalty, 
'death  blue'  (' sterbe-blau'),  as  Zesen  translates  it,  is  the  livery 
of  her  sorrow;  her  clothes,  her  rooms,  her  furniture,  are  all  of 
this  colour.  Nor  does  Markhold's  return  bring  happiness,  for  he 
is  Protestant  while  she  is  Roman  Catholic,  and  her  father  requires 
that  she  should  retain  her  religion,  and  that  any  daughters  of 
hers  should  be  brought  up  in  the  same.  Markhold  will  not  yield 
to  this  demand,  and  Rosemund  succumbs  to  her  sorrow. 

We  see  clearly  that  what  interested  the  poet  in  this  work  was 
the  problem  of  mixed  marriages.  He  expands  his  simple  and  even 
meagre  theme  with  descriptions  of  places,  houses,  furniture,  pic- 
tures, and  dresses ;  he  weaves  in  amusing  and  instructive  conversa- 
tions, and  thus  seeks  to  raise  the  private  life  of  the  middle  classes 
into  a  higher  sphere  of  feeling  and  culture.  But  in  Pastoral 
this  he  found  no  successor.  In  fact  the  whole  school  writing  sup- 

of  pastoral  writing  had  in  the  latter  half  of  the  tenth    Plemented 

by  a  more 
century  to  give  way  to  tragedy  and  to  a  more  ex-      exciting 

citing  class  of  literature,  to  many-volumed  novels  and        style, 
sensuous  poems.     Bombast  now  entered  on  its  naturalistic  stage. 


366  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  x. 

The  English  comedians  had  already  transplanted  naturalism  to 
Germany,  the  coarse  naturalism  of  blood  and  horrors ;  but  the 
same  naturalism  might  be  clothed  equally  well  in  the  rhymed 
couplets  of  the  sixteenth  century  as  in  simple  prose.  In  the 
writings  of  Gryphius,  where  naturalism  does  not  appear  in  its 
most  repulsive  form,  we  perceive  for  the  first  time  an  effort  to 
preserve  an  exalted  and  embellished  style  throughout. 

The  Silesians.  Hoffmannswaldau  and  Lohenstein.  the 
waldau 

(1618-1679)  literary  magnates  of  the  years  1660-1680,  carried 
and  bombastic  poetry  to  its  climax.  Hoffmannswaldau 
lived  from  1618-1679,  Lohenstein  from  1635-1683. 
The  former  distinguished  himself  in  poems,  the  latter 
in  tragedies  and  novels.  In  Hoffmannswaldau  sentimentalism 
passes  into  frivolity ;  in  Lohenstein  the  tragic  tendency  degenerates 
into  mere  love  of  the  horrible.  Hoffmannswaldau,  who  belongs  to 
the  school  of  Ovid,  aims  at  being  graceful,  and  revels  in  the  light 
play  of  wit;  Lohenstein,  as  a  disciple  of  Seneca,  affects  the 
sublime  and  delights  in  mere  bombast.  Hoffmannswaldau  did 
succeed  in  attaining  a  certain  soft  and  attractive  sweetness,  but 
Lohenstein  never  rose  above  rude  splendour  and  pedantic  obscurity. 
Both  were  excessively  admired  in  their  own  time,  and  found  many 
disciples ;  both  seem  merely  repulsive  and  tedious  to  the  readers 
of  to-day.  Nevertheless,  the  form  as  well  as  the  matter  of  their 
Efforts  poetry  shows  a  strong  play  of  imagination.  Poets  now 
after  no  longer  cared  to  borrow  the  adornments  of  their 
originality.  poetry  from  the  ancients,  as  Opitz  had  told  them  to 
do,  but  sought  to  give  their  compositions  a  beauty  of  their  own ; 
their  bad  taste  thus  really  sprang  from  their  effort  after  originality, 
which  was  in  itself  the  first  step  towards  a  nobler  freedom.  Poetry 
had  to  diffuse  itself  over  a  wide  range  of  subjects  before  it  could 
give  profound  utterance  to  any  one.  Imagination  had  to  run  riot 
in  the  wide  domain  of  the  improbable,  before  it  could  gain  new 
creative  power. 

The  bombastic  style,  though  of  foreign  origin,  was  quite  com- 
patible with  warm  patriotic  feeling,  for  all  this  imitation  was  only 
emulation,  only  an  endeavour  to  produce  works  of  equal  merit  with 
those  of  other  countries.  The  joy  of  the  German  Humanists  at 


Ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  367 

the  re-discovery  of  ancient  German  times  in  the  works  of  Tacitus 
and  in  other  Roman  writers  had  not  diminished,  but 
rather  increased.    Tacitus  became  the  favourite  author 


of  the  German  classical  scholars  of  the  seventeenth  ciuverius's 
century.  In  the  year  1616,  Philip  Cluverius  of  Dantzic  'Germania 
published  a  detailed  scientific  description  of  the  an- 
cient  Germans,  a  book  which  long  retained  great 
authority.  In  1643  the  history  of  Arminius,  written  in  German, 
was  published  at  Niirnberg  in  a  miniature  volume,  History  of 
and  had  a  very  wide  sale.  The  novel-writers  of  this  Arminius, 
period  loved  to  lay  the  scene  of  their  stories  in  old  1643. 
Germanic  times,  and  Lohenstein  chose  Arminius  as  the  hero  of  one 
of  his  novels.  The  patriotic  purist,  Philip  von  Zesen,  gave  German 
names  to  the  characters  in  his  novels,  such  as  Rosemund,  Adelmund, 
and  Markhold.  German  scholars  never  tired  of  praising  in  the 
strongest  terms  the  old  German  tongue,  the  language  of  the  ancient 
German  heroes  ;  some  even  tried  to  derive  Greek  and  Latin  from  it, 
and  most  of  them  were  united  in  their  hatred  of  foreign  speech,  dress, 
and  cooking.  Hans  Michael  Moscherosch  (see  p.  386),  in  one  of  his 
prose  satires,  gathers  together  the  heroes  of  the  past,  Ariovistus, 
Arminius,  Wittekind,  and  others,  at  the  castle  of  Geroldseck  in  the 
Vosges  mountains,  and  brings  before  them  a  fashionable  young  Ger- 
man, Philander  von  Sittewald,  who  is  sternly  reproved  by  them  for 
his  affectation  of  foreign  manners  and  his  effeminacy.  Moscherosch 
is  an  indiscriminating  hater  of  the  French,  and  does  not  recognise 
the  value  of  that  refinement  of  manners  which  came  to  Germany 
from  France.  But  such  exaggeration  is  an  evidence  of  the  strong 
patriotic  feeling  at  this  time,  and  we  can  understand  that  this 
patriotism  would  be  of  use  to  poetic  style,  in  making  some  poets 
turn  away  from  the  grandiose  foreign  style  of  writing,  and  return  to 
the  popular  art  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  popular  style  of  the  Reformation  writers,  of  Murner,  Luther, 
and  Hans  Sachs,  is  chiefly  represented  at  this  period   Refinement 
in  church-hymns  and  in  comic  writings  ;  but  it  is  now    of  popular 
raised  to  an  altogether  higher  grade   of  art,  being        style. 
made  more  perfect    in   syntax,  versification,  melody,  and  form. 
Even  the  clown  of  the  popular  drama  was  not  quite  unaffected  by 


368  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  X. 

this  refining  influence,  and  it  was  only  the  lowest  buffoonery,  the 
jokes  of  the  wandering  jugglers  and  singers  and  of  the  mechanical 
writers  of  occasional  verses  that  resisted  all  refinement.  We  have 
seen  how  in  the  church-hymn  Paul  Gerhardt  combined  religious 
themes  with  a  popular  style  and  artistic  form ;  the  comic  poetry 
and  prose  of  this  period  embodied  in  an  artistic  form  the  typical 
characters  of  satire,  the  realistic  style  of  representation,  the  popular 
plain-spokenness,  the  anecdotes,  proverbs,  and  loaded  epithets  of 
the  popular  literature  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

In  the  satirists  of  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  patriotic 

hostility  towards  everything  foreign  went  hand  in  hand  with  a  coarse 

realism  in  style.  This  is  especially  the  case  with  worthy 

Satire.       Johann  Lauremberg  of  Rostock,  whose  '  Four  comic 
Johann  ,          ..  .          .  ...  .       , 

Laurem-      poems,  published  in  1652,  fascinate  us  even  m  the 

berg's 'Vier  present  day.  Whilst  all  the  literary  world  was  striv- 
Scherzge-  mg  after  stricter  versification  Lauremberg  wrote 
1652 '  m  Platt-Deutsch,  and  allowed  himself  the  greatest 
licence  in  his  poetry.  He  boldly  declared :  '  My 
rhymes  are  as  bad  or  as  good  as  the  rough  cap  which  my  grand- 
mother wears.'  ('  Meine  Reime  sind  so  schlecht  und  recht,  wie  die 
rauhe  Mulze,  die  meine  Grossmulter  Iragt.'}  He  says  he  does  not  wish 
to  thunder  and  affect  high-flown  language  after  the  new  fashion ;  he 
sticks  to  the  old  fashion  and  means  to  keep  his  simple  manner. 
He  introduces  popular  coarseness  and  obscene  wit  wherever  it 
suits  him ;  he  has  a  wealth  of  appropriate  humorous  similes  at  his 
command,  and  like  the  writers  of  the  sixteenth  century  he  only 
occasionally  has  recourse  to  the  ancients  for  subject-matter,  and 
does  not  wish  to  imitate  their  form.  His  pictures  of  life  are  always 
interesting,  though  sometimes  his  characters  do  not  keep  true  to 
their  part.  It  cannot  justly  be  said  of  Lauremberg  that  he  appealed 
by  low  means  to  a  low  audience ;  he  shows  the  greatest  skill  in  his 
use  of  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls  in  a  satire  on  all 
classes  of  society,  and  he  has  carefully  secured  an  artistic  connec- 
tion between  his  four  satires.  Throughout  his  writings  we  can 
trace  thoughtful  composition,  a  remarkable  talent  for  artistic 
arrangement,  and  a  great  command  of  language.  Lauremberg 
was  a  many-sided  scholar  and  poet;  from  1618  to  1633  he  was 


Ch.  X.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  369 

Professor  of  Poetry  at  Rostock,  and  from  1623  till  his  death  in 
1658  he  was  Professor  of  Mathematics  at  the  University  of  Soroe 
in  Seeland.  His  '  comic  poems '  were  also  published  in  Danish, 
and  found  as  great  favour  in  Denmark  as  in  Germany. 

Joachim    Rachel    of    Ditmarschen    received    his    education    in 
Rostock,  and  was  at  first  an  adherent  of  Lauremberg's     j      ,  . 
school ;    a  Low- German   poem   of  his,  in  which    a      Rachel's 
peasant  woman  sings  the  praises  of  an  excellent  youth      satirical 
to  her  daughter,  has  become  a  true  popular  song 
and  lives  on  as  such  to  our  day.     Later  on  Rachel  devoted  himself 
to  High-German  poetry;  his  satirical  poems  of  1664  are  written 
after  the  model  of  Persius  and  Juvenal,  but  they  still  betray  the 
influence  of  Lauremberg. 

The  revival  of  the  Satire  led  to  the  revival  of  the  Epigram,  which 
according  to  the  theory  of  the  age  was  only  an  abridged  form  of 
satire.  The  Silesian,  Friedrich  von  Logau,  did  as  much  for  the  epi- 
gram in  the  poetry  of  the  Renaissance  as  Opitz  had  done  for  lyric 
poetry  and  Gryphius  for  the  drama.  In  1 654,  a  year  before  his  death, 

he  published  a  classified  collection  of  epigrams  ('  Sinn- 

Priedrich 
gedichte  ),  comprising  over  three  thousand  poems ;  von  L0gau's 

they  are  mostly  very  short,  and  deal  with  many  well-      « Sinnge- 
known  themes  of  older  or  contemporary  satire,  such      dichte,' 
as  court-life,  the  degeneration  of  the  Fatherland,  the 
decay  of  morals,  various  failings  of  character,  all  handled  with  bright 
wit  and  with  a  serious  purpose,  but  in  a  somewhat  general  manner; 
his  description  of  the  state  of  public  affairs  in  particular  shows  a 
great  want  of  individual  traits.     Logau  carries  his  hatred  of  foreign 
fashion  in  dress  so  far  as  to  say  that  he  would  rather  allow  the 
Germans  their  immoderate  drinking  than  the  worship  of  fashion. 
His  personal  convictions  appear  to  the  best  advantage  when  he  is 
preaching  Christian  charity,  branding  hypocrisy,  and  demanding 
liberty  of  conscience.  '  Lutheran,  Papist,  and  Calvinist/  says  Logau, 
'all  these  three  faiths  exist,  yet  there  is  reason  to  doubt  where 
Christianity  is  to  be  found/ 

After  the  Thirty  Years'  War  the  anonymous  popular  songs  and 
social  songs  gradually  disappear,  but  the  style  of  these  songs  was 
continued  by  poets  of  artistic  culture.  The  authors  of  the  new 

K  h 


37°  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  x. 

pastoral  poems  tried  to  strike  a  light  and  popular  tone.  A  poet 
Poems  in  ^e  Jacob  Schwieger  of  Altona,  the  true  Minnesinger 
popular  of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  always  better  in  the 
style.  popular  and  comic  than  in  the  cultivated  and  serious 
style,  better  in  the  love-ballad  than  in  the  artistic  song  ;  the  Leipzig 
poets  Finckelthaus  and  Brehme,  both  friends  of  Fleming's,  and 
later  on  Schoch  and  other  poets  wrote  rollicking  students'  songs, 
festal  songs,  drinking  songs,  and  satirical  songs  in  which  the 
ancients  are  mocked  at,  lovers  are  rejected,  and  peasants  are 
favourably  contrasted  with  the  devotees  of  fashion.  Some  of 
these  songs  soon  penetrated  into  the  guard-houses  and  taverns. 
Most  lyric  poets  took  care  that  their  songs  should  be  spread 
abroad  accompanied  by  appropriate  melodies,  and  a  few  par- 
ticularly favourite  tunes,  such  as  the  beautiful  melody  to  Rist's 
pastoral  song — '  Daphnis  ging  vor  wenig  Tagen  iiber  die  be- 
griinte  Heid,'  were  frequently  made  use  of.  About  the  year  1660 
we  find  in  song-books  which  were  meant  for  wide  circulation  poems 
by  Opitz,  Rist,  Finckellhaus,  and  Greflinger,  printed  side  by  side 
with  the  later  'Hildebrandslied,'  with  historical  songs  of  the  fifteenth 
and  sixteenth  centuries,  and  love-songs  of  old  renown,  such  as 
'  War  ich  ein  wilder  Falke.' 

Christian  Weise  of  Zittau  (1642-1708)  joined  the  ranks  of  the 
Christian     Leipzig  poets.     From  1660  to  1668  he  studied  and 
"Weise,      gave  lectures  in  Leipzig,  and  he  made  his  first  appear- 
z-1708.    ance  as  a  pOet  about  !6yo.     His  youthful  poems  are 
marked  by  that  easy  flowing  style  combined  with  meagreness  of 
subject-matter,  that  jesting   and  frivolous  tone,  that  mixture  of 
reflection  and  sentiment,  which  remained  for  long  the  fashion  in 
Leipzig,  and  which  even  appears  in  Goethe's  earliest  lyric  poems 
written  in  that  town.     Weise  bids  farewell  to  mythology  and  to  the 
Character    fantastic   school   of  writing;  he   makes   fun   of  the 
of  hi»        Purists,  renounces  the  pastoral  style,  and  prefers  to 
poetry.      adopt  the  mask  of  a  porter  or  a  sexton.     He  wrote 
love -dialogues  and  other  poems  in  dramatic  form,  for  instance, 
a  love  law-suit;  he  describes  dancing  in  a  dance-song,  gives  us 
a  picture  of  the  young  gallant  of  that  day,  and  draws  a  parallel  be- 
tween love  and  a  chase.    Weise  is  always  inclined  to  interweave  witty 


Ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste,  371 

observations  and  descriptions  in  his  lyric  poetry,  which  betray  the 
hand  of  the  satirist  just  as  much  as  the  novels  and  dramas  which 
he  wrote  (see  pp.  389,  396).  Weise  exalted  his  peculiar  manner 
into  a  canon  of  art,  and  even  defended  it  on  theoretic  grounds.  He 
is  continually  exhorting  authors  to  write  in  a  natural  and  uncon- 
strained manner.  He  himself  expressly  aimed  at  a  popular  style, 
and  avoided  everything  artificial,  wishing,  as  he  said,  '  not  to  earn 
the  name  of  a  lofty  and  inspired,  but  of  a  simple  and  clear  writer.' 
He  was  thus  the  very  opposite  of  Lohenstein.  But  the  more  his 
influence  increased,  the  more  empty  and  superficial  did  his  poetry 
become.  As  Professor  in  Weissenfels  (1670),  and  later  on  as 
Rector  in  Zittau  (1678),  he  attracted  the  young  nobility  around 
him,  and  found  an  opportunity  of  claiming  for  German  poetry 
a  place  as  a  recognised  branch  of  an  aristocratic  education  ;  but 
his  verses  of  this  period  approach  more  and  more  the  style  of  the 
mechanical  occasional  poetry  which  we  have  already  noticed, 
and  in  place  of  Lohenstein's  bombastic  obscurity  he  can  only 
offer  us  a  dull,  insipid,  vulgar,  would-be-witty  kind  of  poetry,  well 
suited  to  mediocre  taste  and  mediocre  capacities.  This  style  now 
asserted  its  sway  in  all  branches  of  literature,  and  His  wide 
thus  prepared  the  way  for  the  enlightenment  of  a  influence. 
trivial  rationalism,  and  at  the  same  time  for  the  influx  of  French 
taste. 

In  France  too  the  bombastic  style  prevailed  for  a  time,  and  there 
too  it  met  with  opposition,  and  was  overthrown  earlier 
than  in  Germany.    In  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  Moliere, 


Boileau,  Lafontaine,  and  Racine  led  the  revolt  against      Moliere, 
fustian   in   literature.      In    1659   Moliere  wrote   his      Boileau, 
'  Pre'cieuses   Ridicules;'  in   1674  Boileau   produced  ^^^^Q 
his  'Art  Poeiique,'  in  which   he   inveighed   against 
brilliant  nonsense,  and  exhorted  writers  to  reason   and   healthy 
common-sense.     But  while  in  Germany  the  opposition,  of  which 
Christian  Weise  was  the  leader,  only  gave  rise  to  a  weak  and  insipid 
poetry,  mere  rhymed  prose  full  of  didactic  commonplaces,  in  France, 
on  the  contrary,  there  arose  a  great  literature,  whose  influence  soon 
spread   to  England,  and  which  later  on  derived  from   England 
many  new  ideas  and  suggestions.     The   chief  representative   of 

B  b  2 


372  Tlte  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.x. 

this    literature  and   the   leader   of  Western  European   culture  in 

the  eighteenth  century  was  the  philosopher,  historian, 
Voltaire.  ..  TT 

and  poet,  Voltaire. 

Already  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  new  French  poetry  began 
—^      h       to  exercise  an  influence  in  Germany.     Educated  men 
influence  in  of  the  world,  such  as  the  Prussian  Christian  Wer- 
Germany,     nicke,  began  to  adopt  its  standard  of  taste,  and  to 
urea   7     .    mocjc  at  tjje  German  verse-makers.     About  1 700  we 
find  a  number  of  poets  who  had  begun  as  Lohensteinians  and  had 
then  been  converted  to  French  Classicism.     These  writers  betray  a 
certain  connection  with  Christian  Weise,  but  they  endeavour  to 
rise  above  his  common-place  level ;  they  have  also  some  features 
in  common  with  Hoffmannswaldau,  but  they  aim  more  at  intellect 
and  refinement  than  at  exuberant  descriptions.     The  best  among 
them,  poets  like  Canitz  and  Neukirch,  are  satirists,  and  thus  far 
followers  of  Lauremberg  and  Rachel,  but  they  take  Boileau  and  his 
model  Horace  as  their  examples.     At  the  same  time  poetry  became 
once  more  aristocratic,  and  for  a  time  it  seemed  as  if  Berlin  were 
Berlin       to  ^e  l^e  centre  of  the  French  influence.     The  first 
under       King  of  Prussia,  Frederick  L,  surrounded  himself  with 
Frederick  I.  iiterarv  men.    He  patronised  or  attracted  to  himself 
Pufendorf,  Spener,  Leibniz,  and  many  French  Protestant  preachers. 
He  gave  appointments  in  Halle  to  Thomasius,  Francke,  and  Wolff, 
and  in  architecture  and  the  plastic  arts  he  left  behind  him  visible 
monuments  of  the  rising  greatness  of  his  country.     Baron  von 
Canitz  was  a  member  of  his  Privy  Council ;  the  poet  Johann  von 
Besser  was  the  director  of  the  royal  festivities ;  Benjamin  Neukirch 
held  an  appointment  in  Berlin.     But  the  poetry  of  those  times  was 
far  from  coming  up  to  the  level  of  what  Andreas  Schliiter  accom- 
plished in  architecture  and  sculpture,  and  in  the  year 

progress  ^   accession  of  Frederick  William  I.  put  an  end, 

stopped  by       '    ° 
accession  of  for  the  time,  to  all  hopes  of  literary  or  artistic  develop- 

Frederick  ment.  Schlliter  went  to  St.  Petersburg,  Besser  to 
* '  Dresden-  Neukirch  to  Ansbach ;  Canitz  had  already 
died  in  1699.  A  certain  Pietsch,  an  artist  by  calling, 
was  indeed  made  Professor  of  Poetry  at  Konigsberg  in  return  for 
having  written  a  pompous  eulogy  on  the  victory  of  Prince  Eugene 


Ch.  X.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  373 

at  Temesvar  ;  but  his  disciple  Gottsched,  who  pronounced  Pietsch 
the  greatest  poet  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  obliged  to  keep  away 
from  Berlin,  for  fear  lest  his  strong  build  and  lofty  stature  should 
attract  the  attention  of  Frederick's  zealous  recruiting  officers.  He 
went  to  Leipzig,  where  all  the  earlier  literary  movements  had  found 
a  rallying-place,  and  which  he  now  made  in  addition  the  centre  of 
French  classicism  in  Germany. 

We  have  already  noticed  in  Leipzig  Fleming  and  his  friends  as 
well  as  Christian  Weise.  There  was  no  North  German  town 
where  the  fantastic  style  gained  so  little  ground  as  Leipzig  ^ 
in  Leipzig.  Neither  secular  nor  pietistic  bombast  a  literary 
found  any  favour  there,  and  though  we  find  Thomasius  centre, 
enthusiastically  praising  Lohenstein  and  Hoffmannswaldau,  yet  he 
also  sets  up  the  French  as  models.  As  early  as  1682  the  '  Acta 
Eruditorum '  had  been  started,  a  Latin  learned  newspaper,  after  the 
model  of  the  Paris  '  Journal  des  S9avans.'  Neumeister  and  Henrici, 
who  had  the  honour  of  writing  the  text  for  some  of  Bach's  cantatas 
and  oratorios,  belonged  to  Christian  Weise's  school.  Professor 
Burkard  Menke,  who  in  1707  succeeded  his  father  as  editor  of  the 
'  Acta  Eruditorum,'  also  wrote  satires  and  satirical  occasional  poems 
in  Weise's  style ;  his  poems  show  little  merit,  but  he  recognised 
and  encouraged  youthful  talent  in  Giinther  and  Gottsched,  and  he 
founded  and  directed  the  '  German  Society,'  a  students'  literary  as- 
sociation, which  later  on  developed  into  a  kind  of  academy,  and 
was  used  by  Gottsched  as  the  pedestal  of  his  fame. 

Johann  Christian  Giinther  was  a  kind-hearted  but  wild  and  disso- 
lute character,  who  came  to  a  miserable  end  in  1723,       _  h 
when    only  in   his   twenty-eighth   year.     He  was   a     Christian 
Silesian  by  birth,  and  was  at  first  a  follower  of  Lohen-     Ounther, 

1695— 17  2  3 

stein,  but  later  on  he  chose  his  countryman  Neukirch 
as  a  model,  though  without  giving  up  that  higher  flight  of  fancy 
which  he  had  already  developed  in  the  bombastic  school  of  writing. 
In  addition  to  this,  Giinther  was  influenced  by  the  student-poetry 
which  he  became  acquainted  with  as  a  student  at  Wittenberg  and 
Leipzig,  and  it  was  his  peculiarity  to  confide  to  his  verses  his  own 
joys  and  sorrows,  his  friendships  and  enmities,  his  love,  his  ill- 
health,  his  faults  and  his  repentance,  and  to  demand  the  sympathy 


374  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.x. 

of  posterity  for  the  same.  The  picture  which  he  gives  us  of  him- 
self is  not  pleasing,  but  the  various  influences  which  acted  on  him, 
together  with  his  own  powers,  raised  him  above  the  level  of  his 
contemporaries.  He  could  describe  with  great  imaginative  power, 
and  was  most  successful  in  sketching  small  scenes.  He  wrote 
satirical  occasional  poems  like  Menke,  also  affecting  religious 
liymns  and  serious,  passionate,  and  audacious  love-songs,  seldom 
in  the  pastoral  style,  sometimes  in  ballad-form,  and  generally  drawn 
from  his  own  personal  experience.  Frankness  and  truthfulness 
are  characteristic  of  all  his  poems,  but  this  frankness  sometimes 
degenerates  into  coarseness. 

Compared  with  Giinther,  Gottsched  (see  Chap.  XI.  §  i)  makes 

a  very  poor  figure  as  a  creative  poet.     His  best  gifts 
Gottsched.    ,       .  J  * 

lay  in  another  direction,  but  he  could  not  discern  the 

limits  of  his  powers  ;  he  was  so  arrogant  in  exercising  the  authority 
which  he  had  gained  in  literary  matters,  so  obstinate  in  his  narrow- 
minded  devotion  to  French  Classicism,  that  opposition  to  Gottsched 
was  the  first  task  to  be  performed  by  the  rising  literature  of  the  last 
century.  All  the  young  poets,  on  whose  powers  the  future  prosperity 
of  German  poetry  depended,  first  came  into  notice  as  opponents  of 
Gottsched,  and  in  the  work  of  rendering  German  poetry  more  truly 
national,  the  Prussian  soldier-king,  Frederick  William  I.,  the  in- 
ventor of  the  queue,  also  did  his  part. 

The  patriotic  German  satires  of  the  seventeenth  century,  which 
we  have  noticed  above,  were  the  expression  of  a  wide-spread  feeling, 
a  feeling  which  was  not  confined  to  the  middle  classes  but  ani- 
mated even  some  of  the  German  princely  families.  The  Duchess 
Elizabeth  Charlotte  of  Orleans  adopted  a  homely  and  popular  style 
in  her  splendid  Letters  to  Germany;  she  was  a  Princess  Palatine  and 
maintained  her  upright  and  honourable  German  ways  in  the  midst 
of  the  Court  of  Louis  XIV.  The  patriotic,  simple,  up- 

reder  c      right  type  of  German  character  was  most  strongly  repre- 

\V  1 1 1 1 ;iu i  X. 

His  sented  in  Frederick  William  I.  of  Prussia.  He  was  by 
opposition  no  means  content  with  mere  opposition  to  what  he 
t°fl°r  stamped  as  foreign  affectation  and  refinement ;  his 

activity  also  took  the  direction  of  a  grandmotherly  soli- 
citude for  the  welfare  of  his  people,  an  enlightened  despotism,  and  an 


Ch.  X.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  375 

attempt  to  imprint  upon  his  subjects  his  own  qualities  of  simplicity, 
frugality,  punctuality,  and  military  discipline.  He  made  a  crusade 
against  fashion  and  kept  French  influence  at  a  distance.  The 
chief  factors  in  German  education  since  the  Reformation  and  Re- 
naissance, namely  Biblical  Christianity  and  classical  literature,  were 
thus  able  to  exercise  more  direct  and  exclusive  power  on  the  young 
Prussians  than  on  other  Germans  ;  the  fashionable  French  culture 
stood  less  in  their  way,  and  the  great  models  of  antiquity  were  not 
obscured  for  them  by  an  affected  and  sometimes  petty  taste  calling 
itself  classical.  Thus  it  was  by  no  mere  chance  that  the  Prussian 
University  of  Halle  gave  birth  to  that  poetic  movement  which  the 
Prussian  Klopstock  later  on  carried  to  its  highest  point,  that  Winc- 
kelmann  was  a  Prussian  by  birth,  and  that  Lessing  owed  to  Berlin 
the  stimulus  which  determined  his  later  development. 

English  influence  (which  we  have  already  noticed  at  an  earlier 
period    in    this    history)    was    likewise    destined    to      English 
play  a  part  in  the  literature  of  the  coming  epoch,     influence. 
Gottsched  himself  was  for  a  time  affected  by  it,  though  he  after- 
wards discarded  and  even  opposed  it. 

In  the  first  and  second  decades  of  the  eighteenth  century,  under 
the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  English  literature  assumed 
a  distinctively  middle-class  character.     The  connec-     iiterature 
tion  with  France  was  not  broken  off,  but  France  now        under 


became  in  some  respects  a  debtor  to  England.  Pope 
was  a  follower  of  Boileau,  whom  he  imitated  in^the 
satire,  the  didactic  poem,  and  the  burlesque  epic  ;  but  Pope  de- 
veloped the  philosophical  didactic  poem  in  a  manner  peculiar  to 
himself.  Jonathan  Swift  seems  in  his  satirical  narratives  to  revive 
the  style  of  Rabelais,  but  also  shows  great  originality.  We  shall 
meet  again  with  Daniel  Defoe,  the  author  of  '  Robinson  Crusoe,' 
in  connection  with  German  novel-writers.  (See  next  section.) 

In  the  '  Tatler,'  the  '  Spectator,'  and  the  '  Guardian,' 

The 
Steele  and  Addison  founded  an  important  branch  of     'Tatler' 

older    journalism,    the    moralising    weekly    papers  ;  «  Spectator,' 

their    chief    excellence    lay   in    their    satirical    and         and» 
,  ...  .       'Guardian.' 

humorous   sketches   of  current  manners  and   social 

conditions  and  in  their  popular  and  attractive  manner  of  treating 


376  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  x. 

literary  and  religious  questions.  These  papers  exercised  the 
greatest  influence  on  the  culture  of  the  middle  classes,  and  were 
imitated  at  once  almost  throughout  Europe.  In  Germany,  between 
the  years  1714  and  1800,  we  can  count  over  a  hundred  periodicals, 
more  or  less  of  this  description.  The  earliest  appeared  in  Ham- 
burg; Zurich,  Hamburg,  and  Leipzig  were  the  first 
to  attain  to  excellence  in  this  branch  of  literature.  The 


on  the       Ziirich  '  Discourse  der  Maler'  (1721)  were  published 

same         by  John  Jacob  Bodmer  and  his  friends,  the  Ham- 

burg 'Patriot  '(1724)  by  Brockes  and  his  friends,  and 

Gottsched  was   the   editor   of  the   two    Leipzig   papers,  entitled 

the   '  Verniinftige   Tadlerinnen'    (1725),   and   the  '  Biedermann  ' 

Gottsched    (Jl727)-     Gottsched  also  had  translations  made  of  the 

and         'Spectator'  and  the  'Guardian,'  and  he  owed  to  Addi- 

Addison.     son  tne  onjy  one  of  njs  tragedies  which  is  in  the 

least  suited  for  acting,  i.e.  his  'Cato'  (1732).     He  simply  adopted 

Addison's  tragedy  as  the  basis  for  his  own.  only  adding  to  it  a  few 

ideas  borrowed  from  a  French  tragedy.     The  taste  which  Addison 

represented  was  in  the  main  shared  by  Gottsched.     But  Addison 

stood  far  higher  as  a  critic  than  as  a  poet.      His  own  poetical 

works  were  mediocre,  but  as  a  critic  he  showed  a  thorough  appre- 

ciation of  Milton,  Shakspeare,  Homer,  Biblical  poetry  and  popular 

ballads.   In  this  respect  Gottsched  could  not  come  up  to  him,  but  the 

Zurich  scholars,  Bodmer  and  Breitinger  (see  p.  423),  certainly  did. 

Feud        In  consequence,  there  arose  a  difference  between  their 

between     theoretical  views  and  those  of  Gottsched,  and  this  differ- 

ence became  the  germ  of  a  bitter  feud.     In  addition 
and  the 

Swiss       to  this,  Switzerland  as  well  as  Hamburg  could  point 
.school.       to  poets  of  original  genius,  whom  neither  Gottsched 
nor  his  disciples  could  equal,  namely  Haller  and  Hagedorn. 

Both  these  poets  had  acquired  part  of  their  literary  culture  in 

England,  and  both  have  some  connection  with  Pope. 

and         They   both  wrote   didactic  poems  and   satires  ;  but 

Hagedorn    Hagedorn  is  less  noted  for  these  than  for  his  many 

>mpare       slight  poems,  fables  and  stories  in  verse,  after  the  model 

of  Lafontaine  and  other  poets.     He  is  bright  and  sprightly  where 

Haller  is  heavy  and  serious.     Haller  recognises  Virgil's  uniform 


Ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  377 

sublimity  as  his  highest  model,  but  Hagedorn  strives  to  attain  the 
elegant  conversational  tone  of  Horace.  Haller  seeks  to  reproduce  in 
poetry  the  grandeur  of  Alpine  scenery,  but  Hagedorn  is  content  with 
the  modest  charms  of  town  and  level  country.  The  former  is  sunk  in 
religious  melancholy,  whereas  the  latter  is  a  thorough  child  of  the 
world.  Haller,  notwithstanding  his  efforts,  never  quite  freed  him- 
self from  his  Swiss-German,  but  Hagedorn  attained  to  perfect 
finish  and  smoothness  of  expression.  Haller's  writings  are  full  of 
profound  thoughts,  and  bear  the  stamp  of  a  high  intellect;  Hagedorn, 
on  the  contrary,  loved  a  light  and  easy  treatment  of  his  subject. 
Haller  generally  used  the  Alexandrine,  Hagedorn  less  frequently. 
Hagedorn  has  far  more  of  the  modern  spirit  than  Haller,  and  yet 
it  was  the  latter  who  exercised  the  greatest  influence  on  posterity. 
The  Swiss  poet  Haller  is  more  German;  the  Hamburg  poet 
Hagedorn  more  international. 

Albrecht  von  Haller  of  Berne  holds  in  German  literature  a  place 
close  to  Giinther.  His  celebrated  '  Ode  to  Doris' — for     Albrecht 
whose  ardour  he  thought  it  right  in  his  old  age  to  offer  von  Haller, 
an  apology — is  a  moderately  passionate  Guntherian    170S  ~1777> 
love-song.     Haller  too  had  in  his  youth  embraced  the  Lohensteinian 
exalted  style,  and  had  retained  enough  of  it  to  prevent  him  from 
ever  sinking  into  common-place  twaddle.    He  held  a  very  peculiar 
position,  being  equally  noted  as  a  scholar,  a  critic,  and  a  poet. 
He  lived  from  1708  to  1777,  and  thus  saw  Gottsched's  highest 
glory  and  also  the  dawn  of  Goethe's  fame.     His  best  poems  were 
written  between  the  years  1725  and  1736,  and  the  first  collected 
edition  of  them  appeared  in  1732;   they  are  few  in  number,  and 
he  treated  them  as  quite  secondary  work,  but  still  was  never  tired 
of  repolishing  them.     In  his  old  age  he  tried  his  hand  at  writing 
political  novels;  his  '  Usong'  (1771)  deals  with  Oriental  despotism; 
his  'Alfred,  Konig   der  Angelsachsen '  (1773)  treats   of  limited 
monarchy;  his  'Fabius  and  Cato  '  (1774)  describes  that  form  of 
government  under  which  he  had  himself  grown  up,  and  in  whose 
service  he  ended  his  life — i.e.  an  oligarchy.    His  wide         His 
scientific   knowledge,    his   power   of  work,    and   his     scientific 
capacity  for  collecting  and  classifying  masses  of  facts,   knowledse- 
were  quite  marvellous.     His  contemporaries  placed  him  on  a  level 


378  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

with  Leibniz,  and  like  Leibniz  he  had  no  equal  among  his  contem- 
poraries. His  chief  interest  was  medicine,  and  especially  anatomy 
and  physiology ;  he  studied  in  Tubingen  and  Leyden,  in  London, 
Paris,  and  Basle,  and  from  1736  to  1753  he  taught  in  Gottingen, 
acquiring  an  ever-increasing  reputation.  But  notwithstanding  his 
success,  he  could  not  bear  his  exile  from  his  native  land,  and  in 
1753  he  gave  up  all  the  honours  and  influence  which  the  University 
could  bestow  on  him,  and  even  the  possibility  of  strict  scientific  re- 
search and  discovery  in  his  own  favourite  department,  in  order  to  ac- 
cept an  unimportant  office  in  the  State  of  Berne.  This  office  did  indeed 
later  on  open  to  him  a  sphere  of  great  general  usefulness,  but  did 
not  offer  him  any  scope  for  political  activity.  His  devotion  to  his 
fatherland  is  attested  by  many  passages  in  his  poetry.  As  a  student 
in  Leyden  he  gave  vent  to  his  home-sicknesss  in  verse.  A 

His  poetry,  botanical  excursion  in  the  Bernese  Oberland  called 
'Die  Alpen.'  forth  njs  poem  '  The  Alps/  which  contains  descrip- 
tions of  nature  and  men,  full  of  truth  and  showing  great  power  of 
language.  Haller  omits  the  ideal  shepherd  of  contemporary  lyric 
poetry,  and  yet  manages  to  shed  over  his  poem  the  rosy  light  of  a 
golden  age,  for  he  imagines  himself  to  have  discovered  primal  in- 
nocence and  virtue  among  the  shepherds  of  his  native  mountains. 
He  sarcastically  censures  the  corrupt  morals  of  the  period  as  he  saw 
them  in  his  own  native  town,  and  displays,  in  so  doing,  the  same 
patriotic  zeal  against  everything  foreign,  which  we  noticed  in  the 
older  satirists.  Yet  he  could  also  appreciate  the  greatness  of  the 
age  in  which  he  lived,  and  praises  its  enlightenment,  while  he 
expresses  his  hatred  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  Catholicism  and  the 
priests.  He  is  a  Protestant  of  strong  convictions  like  Leibniz, 
whose  philosophy  he  adopted,  but  his  treatment  of  the  problem  of 
the  origin  of  evil,  in  his  longest  didactic  poem,  is  not  very  successful. 
Poem  on  Some  fragments  of  a  poem  on  Eternity,  on  the  con- 
Etemity  trary,  are  really  magnificent,  especially  his  picture 

and  others.  oj-  Newton,  whom  he  conjures  up  in  order  to  ask 

him  unanswerable  questions,  and  thus  to  show,  in  a  truly  Faustian 

Haiier's      mood,  the  nothingness  of  human  knowledge.     Haller 

style.         Was  tolerably  well  master  of  the  collective  wisdom  of 

his  time  ;  his  thoughtful  monologues  are  based  on  exact  knowledge, 


Ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popular  Taste.  379 

but  he  always  tries  to  embody  abstract  ideas  in  an  imaginative 
form  and  to  give  poetic  expression  to  stern  moral  problems,  and 
at  every  turn  he  refutes  the  false  opinion  that  the  didactic  poem  is 
a  low  order  of  poetry.  He  likes  to  begin  his  poems  with  a 
description  of  external  nature,  sometimes  reminding  us  of  Brockes, 
whom  Haller  zealously  studied  and  imitated  in  his  youth;  but 
whereas  Brockes,  like  all  the  poets  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
never  knows  where  to  end,  and  often  becomes  trivial,  Haller,  on  the 
contrary,  keeps  the  true  artistic  mean. 

Friedrich  von  Hagedorn  belonged  to  Brockes'  circle  of  friends. 

He  was  of  the  same  asre  as  Haller,  but  died  in  1754. 

Friedrich 

He  won  his  literary  spurs  in  writing  for  the  Hamburg         von 
'  Patriot.'   But  while  Brockes  stuck  fast  all  his  life  in    Hagedorn, 
the  Lohensteinian  bombast  of  the  Hamburg  opera-  ' 

poets,  Hagedorn  entirely  freed  himself  from  it.     His  first  collection 
of  poems,  published  in  1729,  showed  that  he  had  not     His  early 
quite  thrown  off  the  older  taste  ;  he  praises  Besser,       poems, 
Gottsched,  Brockes,  and  Pietsch  as  true  poets,  and          7 
describes  in  Brockes'  manner ;  he  also  writes  a  political  ode  in  the 
style  of  Giinther,  and  sings  the  praises  of  wine  in  the  uncouth 
verses  of  the  students'  song.     It  is  in  his  poetic  fables  and  tales, 
published  in  1738,  and  in  the  odes,  songs,  didactic     His  later 
poems,  satires,  and  epigrams,  which  appeared  in  a       poems, 
collected   form    in    1753,   that    his   whole   talent   is    WSS-lTSS. 
revealed.     Hagedorn  made  great  advances  in  poetic  form  and  was 
the  first  to  re-introduce  into  German  literature  the  taste  and  correct- 
ness of  the  Minnesingers.   He  knew  how  to  make  his  style  not  only 
elegant  but  also  generally  intelligible,  and  though  several  of  his 
poems  would  appeal  only  to  more  cultivated  readers,  others  are 
addressed  to  a  very  large  public.     Hagedorn's  life 
and   circumstances    strongly   influenced   his   poetry. 
He  was  of  noble  birth  and  grew  up  in  the  best  society ;  he  im- 
bibed French  culture  in  his  home  and  English  culture  in  London. 
His  three  years  of  student-life  in  Jena  probably  made  him  acquainted 
with  German  popular  poetry  in  the  students'  songs.    He  afterwards 
settled  in  Hamburg,  a  town  where  the  '  Volkslieder '  still  enjoyed 
the  favour  of  the  middle  classes.     There  he  lived  in  comfortable 


380  The  Daivn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

circumstances,  and  his  office  of  secretary  to  a  commercial  company 
left  him  ample  leisure  for  social  enjoyments  and  also  for  the  in- 
tellectual pleasures  of  reading  and  poetry.  He  expected  the  same 
appreciation  of  science  and  art  from  the  Hamburg  merchants  as 
he  had  met  with  in  the  English  ones.  Hagedorn  was  a  refined 
Epicurean,  and  a  man  of  a  bright  and  cheerful  disposition.  Like 
his  beloved  Horace,  he  praised  contentment  as  the  only  happiness. 
Liberty  and  friendship  seemed  to  him  the  most  desirable  things, 
His  fables  while  he  depreciated  power,  riches,  and  luxury.  He 
and  tales.  Wrote  fables  and  tales  in  verse  after  French  and 
English  models,  but  he  was  not  unacquainted  with  his  German 
predecessors  of  the  sixteenth  century  in  this  branch  of  literature. 
In  the  seventeenth  century  this  class  of  poetry  had  been  entirely 
ousted  by  the  pompous  didactic  poetry  and  the  grandiloquent 
novels  then  in  vogue,  and  it  had  never  gained  an  entrance  into 
the  realm  of  popular  song ;  now,  the  increasing  sense  of  form  and 
the  consequent  demand  of  finer  charms  even  in  narrative-writing, 
the  pleasure  in  what  was  profitable  and  amusing  at  the  same  time, 
the  love  of  satire,  wit,  and  pregnant  sayings  brought  the  fable  and 
tale  into  new  favour.  Lafontaine  and  Lamotte  enjoyed  the  greatest 
popularity  in  Germany;  it  was  some  translations  of  Lamotte's 
fables,  published  by  Brockes,  which  first  suggested  that  style  of 
writing  which  was  afterwards  so  successfully  developed  by  Gellert, 
and  this  whole  class  of  writing  prepared  the  way  for  the  rhymed 
epic.  Hagedorn  was  not  one  of  the  best  story-tellers,  but  he  was 
the  first  to  gain  great  success;  he  prepared  the  way  for  Gellert, 
and  a  few  of  his  characters,  such  as  'John,  the  cheerful  soap-boiler,' 
are  yet  unforgotten.  In  his  tales  he  revived  a  vanished  type  of 
German  bourgeois-poetry  and  gave  it  a  French  colouring,  and  in 
his  lyric  poetry  he  joined  the  ranks  of  those  older  writers,  who, 
His  •  Oden  ^e  Christian  Weise,  carried  on  the  popular  style. 
und  His  '  Odes  and  Songs '  contained  free  translations  of 

Lieder,'      Horace  and  imitations  of  Anacreon,  and  for  the  rest 
1747 

poems  on  well-known  subjects,  only  more  finely  con- 
ceived and  more  wittily  carried  out  than  usual,  and  often  ending 
in  an  unexpected  way,  after  the  French  manner.  In  this  collec- 
tion there  are  social  choruses,  drinking  songs,  and  pastoral  songs ; 


Ch.  x.]  The  Refinement  of  Popiilar  Taste.  381 

love  and  wine  are  sung  of  in  lyrics,  dialogues,  ballads,  and  reflective 
poems,  while  we  also  meet  with  beautiful  pictures  of  nature,  serious 
and  ironical  eulogies,  and  songs  put  into  the  mouth  of  certain 
characters.  Various  types  of  character  are  often  treated  satirically 
from  one  special  point  of  view,  and  there  are  altogether  many 
satirical  elements  in  these  poems,  but  there  is  a  marked  absence  of 
serious  and  affecting  love-poems.  There  is  a  special  charm  in  a 
few  short  songs  consisting  only  of  one  stanza,  which  Hagedorn 
says  he  derived  from  French  models. 

Haller  and  Hagedorn  both  liked  to  draw  types  of  character,  and 
their  delineation  of  human  nature  is  mostly  confined  to  this ;  but 
Haller  also  drew  ideal  figures,  and  Hagedorn  constructed  a  frame- 
work of  narrative  for  the  characters  of  his  satire.  In  their  satire 
both  these  poets  meet  on  the  same  ground;  both  were  influenced 
by  that  current  of  satire,  which  we  have  traced  since  Lauremberg, 
which  was  continued  after  him  in  the  Leipzig  poets,  in  Canitz  and 
Neukirch,  and  was  strengthened  by  the  moralising  weekly  papers. 
Prose  satire,  in  the  shape  of  literary  criticism,  must  also  be  men- 
tioned under  this  head.  Hagedorn's  friend,  Christian 

Christian 
Ludwig  Liscow,  who  was,  like  Lauremberg,  a  native  of      Ludwig 

Mecklenburg,  ridiculed,  with  first-rate  humour  and  in      Liscow. 
a  clear  and   readable  style,  insignificant  characters,        _2?**r 

J     '  critic. 

such  as  bad  preachers,  bad  writers,  tasteless  scholars, 
servile  flatterers,  or  theologising  lawyers.     He  fought  in  the  cause 
of  enlightenment  for  the  rights  of  reason,  liberty,  and  manly  dignity. 
In  the  year  1739  he  made  a  collection  of  his  satirical  writings ;  after 
that  he  wrote  no  more,  and  he  died  in  1760  at  the  age  of  sixty. 

There  is  an  undeniable  connection  between  the  movement  in 
favour  of  enlightenment  and  rationalism,  and  the  class      The  en- 
of  poetry  represented  by  Hagedorn,  in  which  taste,  lightenment 
intellect,  and  wit  predominate  over  imagination  and    moveinent 
feeling;  and  this  connection  becomes  specially  apparent  Hagedorn's 
if  we  compare  Hagedorn's  poems  and  Liscow's  satires,       poetry, 
for  both  of  these  were  the  work  01  men  of  an  equable  temperament, 
both  were  the  fruit  oi  an  independent  attitude  of  mind,  and  both 
show  dignity  and  correctness  in  form. 

German   literature    had   made   a   long    step    from    Gerhardt's 


382  The  Daivn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  x. 

church-hymns  and  Lauremberg's  satires  through  the  Italian  bom- 
Gradual  bastic  style  to  French  classicism  and  the  English 
improve-  influence  ;  yet  on  the  whole  it  was  a  direct  path,  at 

men  o       ieast  for  the  favourite  forms  of  literature  in  that  time. 
popular 
taste  from    The   religious,  patriotic,  and   moral   pathos   of  the 

the  16th  church-hymn  and  the  satire  kept  true  to  the  simple, 
century.  pOpUiar  style  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  when  that 
style  threatened  to  sink  into  mere  platitude  French  and  English 
influences  came  to  its  aid.  The  literature  of  orthodoxy  as  well  as 
of  rationalism  adhered  to  the  popular  style ;  romances,  secular  lyric 
poetry,  and  the  drama,  on  the  contrary,  fell  entirely  under  the 
dominion  of  bombast,  and  even  the  pietistic  writers  were  sometimes 
carried  away  by  the  tendency  :  but  pietistic  literature  possessed  in- 
dependent sources  of  strength  in  the  Song  of  Solomon  and  in 
the  old  German  Mystics,  and  never  quite  lost  its  sympathy  with  the 
people.  Still,  the  best  religious  poetry  never  exercised  an  elevating 
influence  on  the  secular,  but,  on  the  contrary,  endeavoured  to 
approximate  to  secular  poetry.  It  was  not  till  Klopstock  that  the 
highly  imaginative  pietistic  poetry  bore  fruit  in  deepening  and 
sanctifying  earthly  emotions.  But  this  whole  development  was 
really  the  slow  rise  of  popular  poetry  from  the  degradation  it  had 
sunk  to  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

Imagination  and  clearness  were  first  combined  in  Wieland  (see 
Chap.  XI).  Haller's  style  was  not  popular,  and  his  form  not  always 
correct.  Through  Hagedorn  correctness  of  form  penetrated  about 
the  year  1740  into  popular  poetry;  till  then  both  the  drama  and 
the  novel  were  without  it.  But  in  both  these  branches  of  litera- 
ture the  popular  style  achieved  the  greatest  successes;  in  novel- 
writing  Grimmelshausen  gained  the  chief  honours,  in  the  drama 
Christian  Weise. 

THE  NOVEL. 

After  the  versified  romances  of  the  Middle  Ages  had  given  way 

Romance     to  Prose>  ^  was  m  tne  story  of  'Amadis  of  Gaul'  (see 

of          p.  298)  that  the  spirit  of  the  chivalrous  poetry  was  best 

'  Amadis.'    preserved,  and  this  romance,  with  its  kindred  successors, 

became  the  school  of  fine  manners  and  good  taste.    It  retained  this 


Ch.  x.j  Ttte  Novel.  383 

position  even  when  the  new  romantic  style,  which  was  flourishing  in 
Spain  and  other  countries  about  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, was  introduced  into  Germany  by  means  of  numerous  transla- 
tions.   'Don  Quixote'  was  translated  into  German,  but  did  not  excite 
much  notice.    Certain  changes,  however,  set  in  in  German  romance- 
writing,  which  look  as  if  Cervantes'  ridicule  had  been 
taken  to  heart.     About  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth      Spanish 
century  the  chivalrous  novels  began  to  be  attacked ;    influence, 
some  people  condemned  the  romance  of '  Amadis '  as         17th 

century. 

immoral ;  they  feared  that  it  contained  snares  of  the 
devil,  and  were  offended  by  its  fabulous  and  magical  elements. 
About  the  same  time  German  novel-writers  began  to  try  their  hand 
at  original  invention,  and  endeavoured  to  cultivate  in  Germany  the 
various  classes  of  novels  which  were  in  vogue  elsewhere,  and  to 
dress  them  up  in  the  newly  acquired  grandiloquent  style. 

Little  was  accomplished  at  this  time  in  the  province  of  the 
pastoral  romance.  This  class  of  writing  belonged  essentially  to 
the  period  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War;  Philip  von  Zesen,  as  we 
know,  had  developed  it  in  a  special  direction,  bringing  it  down  to 
the  level  of  real  life  (see  p.  365),  but  his  example  had  no  immediate 
effect. 

After  the   pastoral    romances,   the   hero-romances    and    love- 
romances  had  enjoyed  the  greatest  favour  in  France        Her 
and  Italy.     These  romances  often  spread  over  many     romances 
volumes.  They  introduced  important  historical  events,     and  love- 
or  else  they  were  transferred  to  remote  regions  and 
dark  ages,  and  were  spun  out  by  numerous  episodes,  sometimes 
derived  from  contemporary  history,  so  that  the  characters  of  the 
narrative  might  be  simply  real  people,  disguised  under  a  slight 
mask.      We   have   already   had   examples  of  this  fashion  in  the 
epics  of  the  Emperor  Maximilian,  in  Rollenhagen's  '  Froschmau- 
seler,'  and  in  some  of  the  pastoral  romances.  Where  these  romances 
were  connected  with  well-known  historical  or  biblical  characters, 
they  differed  but  slightly  from  the  historical  novels  of  the  present 
day. 

The  historical  romance  was  introduced  into  Germany  about  the 
year  1660  by  a  Lutheran  clergyman,  Bucholtz  by  name.  Bucholtz 


The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  x. 

was  professor  of  theology  and  afterwards  '  Superintendent  * '  in 

Pseudo-      Brunswick.     He  hated  '  Amadis '  and  he  hated  the 

historical     Jews  ;  he  planted  his  heroes  in  a  fabulous  Christian 

romances.    Germany  of  the  third  century ;  he  drew  his  episodes 

from    the    Thirty    Years'    War,    and    he    set    forth 

the  whole  Lutheran  system  of  dogma  in  his  conversations.     In 

invention  Bucholtz  seldom  got  beyond  the  old  ideas  of  the  Greek 

and  the  chivalrous  romances;    the  best  figure  which  he  created, 

that   of  a   German   Amazon,   reminds   us   of  Tasso's   Clorinde, 

or    of  Virgil's    Camilla.      Bucholtz    meant   his    pious   novels   to 

compete  with  the  secular  poetry  for  the  favour  of  the  general 

public,  just  as  the  religious  poets  of  the  twelfth  century  wished 

Duke        t^ie^r  works  to  supplant  the  old  German  heroic  poetry. 

Anton  Duke  Anton  Ulrich  of  Brunswick,  whom  we  shall 

TJirich  of    have  occasion  to  notice  as  a  patron  of  the  drama, 

wrote  two  chaotic  and  long-winded  romances,  one  of 

which  gives  the   history  of  an  ancient  German  chief  whom  the 

venerable  Melchisedech  had  married  to  a  queen  of  Nineveh,  while 

the  other  has  for  its  hero  the  son  of  Arminius.     Lohenstein  made 

Arminius  and  his  Thusnelda  the  centre  of  a  diffuse 

ten-      history,   which   appeared    in    1689    in    two    quarto 

'Arminius    volumes  of  3076  pages.     This  work  is  a  mass  of  his- 

und         torical,  antiquarian,  geographical,  and  ethnographical 

Tnu™,®lda'    knowledge.     It  contains  a  disguised  history  of  the 

loo<3* 

Habsburg  emperors  and  of  the  modern  religious  wars, 
a  fictitious  history  of  early  German  times,  written  with  a  patriotic 
bias,  a  number  of  imaginary  incidents  and  adventures,  and  sketches 
of  various  philosophies,  all  jumbled  together  in  an  unpleasing 
medley.  Herr  Heinrich  Anshelm,  of  Ziegler,  and  Klipphausen  in 
Lusatia,  understood  far  better  than  Lohenstein  the  art  of  effective 

and   lively  narration.     His  'Asiatische   Banise'   ap- 
Anshelm 

von         peared  the  year  before  Lohenstein  s  '  Arminius,    and 

ziogier's      is  in  comparison  with  it  a  book  of  moderate  dimen- 

1  Aaiatische    sions    jt  js  fuji  of  battles,  horrors,  and  narrow  escapes, 
Baniae.'  .  '. 

of   love  and  jealousy,   complications  and    surprises, 

passionate    utterances,  and  calculating   and    measured    speeches. 
1  The  highest  office  in  the  Lutheran  church. 


Ch.  X.]  The  Novel.  385 

The  subject-matter  was  derived  from  Oriental  history  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  but  it  has  been  skilfully  treated  by  the  author  so 
as  to  form  a  complete  romance.  There  is  a  marked  absence  of 
pedantry  in  the  work,  and  the  author  gives  us  the  usual  characters 
of  romance :  a  noble  and  persecuted  princess,  a  brave  lover,  a 
humorous  servant,  and  a  horrible  tyrant.  Furnished  with  these 
attractions  the  book  quickly  found  a  large  audience,  and  was  for 
a  long  time  the  delight  of  the  German  reading  public. 

Meanwhile,  in  France,  the  novel  had  been  reformed  by  the  Coun- 
tess Lafayette,  who  gave  it  the  stamp  of  the  age  of 
Louis  XIV. ;   she  discarded  all  the  improbable  inci-     countess 
dents,  and  gave  up  the  principle  that  the  scene  of  a   Lafayette's 
romance  must   necessarily  be  laid  in  a  remote  and 
ideal  region.    Instead  of  the  ordinary  romance  of  ad- 
ventures she  wrote  a  touching  modern  love-story,  full  of  simple 
and  truthful  pictures  of  human  passion  and    virtue,   wishes  and 
sacrifices,  joys  and  sorrows.     But  her  example  was 
not  followed  by  the  German  novelists,  though  Zesen      example 
had  already  made  an  effort   to  introduce    the  same          not 

principles  into  German  romance-writing.     The  Ger-   followed  m 
j.j  .        ,  i      T-         i    r         G-ermany. 

mans  did  not  need  to  have  recourse  to  the  French  for 

the  coarser  pictures  of  real  life,  and  all  that  French  influence  did 
for  them  was  to  further  encourage  the  tendency  to  write  mere 
frivolities  and  platitudes.  To  impart  instruction  in  novels,  and 
to  unite  the  profitable  and  the  pleasurable,  continued  for  a  long 
time  to  be  the  aim  of  many  German  romance-writers,  who  really 
only  deserved  the  name  of  bookmakers.  And  whoever  had  theo- 
logical scruples  against  light  literature  pure  and  simple,  produced 

in  opposition   an   allegorical   story  with   a   spiritual 

,„.        .     .  D         u        Spiritual 

meaning.      I  hus,  for  instance,  Jonann  Ludwig  Frasch,    allegories 

a  Protestant  living  in  Regensburg,  transformed    the      Prasch's 

ancient  myth  of  Cupid  and  Psyche  into  an  allegorv      '  Psyche 
.  ,  . ,.  ,        ,       ,       .  '        cretica.' 

of  the  soul,  which,  after  having  overcome  the  tempta- 
tions of  the  world,  is  exalted  to  heavenly  regions.     Other  coun- 
tries had  set  the  example  in  these  spiritual  allegories,  and  in  the 
early  drama  of  the  seventeenth  century  attempts  had  already  been 
made  to  give  a  Christian  interpretation  to  the  old  heathen  myths. 

c  c 


386  The  Daivn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

In  this  branch  of  writing  too.  Father  Martin  von  Cochem  (see 

p.  339)  deserves  honourable  mention.     His  '  Select 

Martin's     History  Book '  is  a  collection  of  sacred  legends  and 

•Auseriesenes  biblical  and  secular  stories,  all  told  with  great  skill. 

History-     ^  ieast  three  of  his  stories  were  afterwards  reprinted 

TmpVi  * 

separately,  and  in  this  form  became  thorough  people's 
books ;  these  were  '  Griseldis,'  a  story  pretty  widely  known  before 
his  time  in  various  versions,  '  Genovefa '  and  '  Hirlanda/  both  of 
which  he  derived  from  a  book  by  a  French  Jesuit — another  proof 
of  the  strength  of  French  influence  in  the  sphere  of  popular 
romance.  About  this  time  the  Nibelungen  legend  was  revived 

Popular      once  more  in  the  popular  story  of  the  invulnerable 

story  of  Siegfried ;  but  even  this  story  purports  to  be  a  trans- 
Siegfried.  iatjon  from  the  French,  and  in  truth,  one  of  the 
episodes,  in  which  two  cowards  fight  together,  must  be  of  French 
origin. 

Thus  the  ancient  German  legend  had  to  sail  under  a  foreign 
flag  if  it  wished  once  more  to  gain  access  to  the  ears  of  the  people ; 
and  we  shall  soon  see  that  the  best  productions  of  German  litera- 
ture in  the  period  after  the  war  were  written  under  foreign  influence. 
We  owe  to  Spanish  influence  the  truest  pictures  of  the  war-period, 
the  most  life-like  descriptions  of  real  life,  which  have  come  down  to 
us  from  this  period  of  the  dawn  of  modern  literature,  namely, 
the  writings  of  Hans  Michael  Moscherosch  and  Hans  Jacob  Chris- 
toffel  of  Grimmelshausen. 

Moscherosch  (1601-1669)  came  from  the  Upper  Rhine  and 
died  in  Hessia;  Grimmelshausen  (1625-1676)  was 
(ieoi-1669)  a  nat've  °f  Hessia,  and  ended  his  days  on  the  Upper 
His 'Qesichte  Rhine.  Both  showed  their  talent  in  drawing  satirical 
Phiiander's  pictures  of  the  life  around  them ;  Moscherosch  was  a 
wait '  rea^  sat'"st>  Grimmelshausen  used  satire  in  his  novels. 
Their  literary  models  belonged  to  that  school  of  art 
which  is  most  brilliantly  represented  in  painting  by  the  genre- 
pictures  of  Murillo.  Moscherosch  translated  Quevedo's  satirical 
'  Dreams/  and  wrote  himself  some  descriptions  of  the  same  character ; 
the  most  noteworthy  of  these  are  a  picture  of  the  military  life  of 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  and  the  scene  at  Geroldseck,  which  we 


Ch.  x.]  The  Novel.  387 

have  already  noticed  (p.  367),  between  the  fashionable  young  Ger- 
man and  the  old  Germanic  heroes.  Grimmelshausen  adopted 
the  style  of  the  Spanish  humorous  and  roguish  romances.  His 
'  Simplicissimus,'  which  appeared  in  1668,  narrates  in  autobio- 
graphical form  the  adventures  and  fortunes  of  a  vagabond, 
the  various  incidents  being  very  similar  to  those  of  the  Spanish 
romances.  But  while  the  Spanish  vagabonds  commit  one  roguery 
after  another,  and  are  at  the  end  of  the  book  seldom  better  than 

they  were  at  the  beginning,  the  character  of  Simplicius 

_.       ,  Qrimmels- 

Simphcissimus  is  conceived  m  a  far  more  serious  and      hausen 

moral  spirit.     In  the  Spanish  romances  we  are  re-  (1625-1676). 

minded  of  the  tricks  of  the   scamp  Morold,  but   in  His  '  p^Pj1" 

cissimus. 
reading  '  Simplicissimus '  the  comparison  to  Wolfram's 

1  Parzival '  naturally  suggests  itself.  Simplicius,  like  Parzival,  grows 
up  in  solitude,  a  stranger  to  the  world ;  he  loses  his  parents 
when  still  young,  he  discovers  his  near  relations  in  the  course  of 
his  life,  and  does  not  learn  till  late  that  he  is  of  noble  descent. 
Dressed  in  fool's  motley  he  becomes  an  object  of  general  ridicule. 
When  he  sees  riders  for  the  first  time  he  takes  man  and  horse  to 
be  one  creature ;  when  asked  for  his  name,  he  answers  '  Boy/  for 
so  he  was  called  by  his  supposed  parents.  His  inner  development 
leads  from  simplicity  to  sin,  and  from  sin  to  repentance  and 
amendment.  Simplicius  too  has  long  forgotten  God,  and  as  Par- 
zival was  directed  by  a  pilgrim  knight,  so  Simplicius  has  the  right 
way  pointed  out  to  him  by  a  soldier  who  is  just  starting  on  a  pil- 
grimage. For  a  long  time  he  contents  himself  with  the  most 
general  religious  ideas,  till  at  last  he  chooses  a  special  creed,  the 
Catholic,  and  partakes  of  its  sac~raments.  The  place  which  the 
knight  Trevrizent  holds  in  '  Parzival '  is  taken  by  Simplicius's  first 
teacher,  who,  from  the  very  beginning  of  the  story,  takes  pity  on 
the  poor  child,  neglected  by  the  peasants  who  have  the  charge 
of  him,  and  who  afterwards  turns  out  to  be  the  child's  father. 
Like  Parzival,  Simplicius  has  soon  to  leave  his  wife,  and  though  he 
is  not  faithful  to  her  but  succumbs  easily  to  temptation,  yet  he  still 
has  a  faithful  friend  at  his  side,  who  is  the  means  by  which  his 
nobler  nature  raises  itself  once  more.  As  Wolfram's  poem  was 
not  without  fabulous  and  marvellous  elements  by  the  side  of  pic- 

.c  c  2 


388  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  X. 

tures  of  real  life,  so  too  Grimmelshausen  made  artistic  use  of  all 
the  superstitions  of  his  time,  such  as  witchcraft,  exorcisms,  treasure- 
digging,  legends,  interweaving  them  with  the  extravagantly  realistic 
descriptions  in  which  he  delighted.    Simplicius  is  sur- 
in  the        rounded  by  the  military  life  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
Thirty       as  Parzival  is  by  the  life  of  chivalry.     But  there  is  a 

.ears  ar.  yagt  djfference  m  the  state  of  morals  represented  in 
the  two  works;  where  Wolfram  shows  us  refinement,  Grimmels- 
hausen gives  us  nothing  but  coarseness,  and  draws  a  picture  of  a 
fearful  state  of  moral  corruption,  in  which  there  is  no  security  for 
person  or  property,  and  unfaithfulness  of  every  kind  is  the  order  of 
the  day.  Stealing,  profligacy,  murder,  and  incendiarism  flourish, 
and  a  deadly  war  is  raging  between  soldiers  and  peasants;  the 
towns  alone  afford  behind  their  strong  walls  a  refuge  where  quiet 
social  intercourse,  reading,  art,  but  above  all  low  pleasures  can 
be  carried  on.  The  general  level  of  culture  is  rather  that  of  '  Rud- 
lieb '  than  of  '  Parzival.'  At  times  we  find  ourselves  transported 
back  to  the  coarseness  and  the  filthy  jesting  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Women  have  but  slight  influence,  and  that  not  of  a  refining 
nature. 

Grimmelshausen's  male  characters  are  drawn  with  great  skill  and 

Excellen-     vai"ietv-     His  moral  judgment  is  consistent  throughr 
ces  and      out,  and  the  artistic  unity  of  the  work  is  fairly  kept  in 

defects  of  view.  The  narrative  is  developed  according  to  a 
well-considered  plan,  and  the  descriptions  give  us  the 
impression  of  being  drawn  from  personal  experience  and  observa- 
tion. But  occasionally  Moscherosch  gives  way  to  the  prevalent 
love  of  out-of-the-way  learning,  and  sometimes  the  speeches  seem 
unsuitable  to  the  characters  in  whose  mouth  they  are  placed.  We 
might  also  wish  for  more  simple  and  definite  outlines  in  the  story 
and  for  a  better  conclusion.  Just  when  we  think  the  hero  is  saved 
he  has  the  strangest  relapses,  till  finally,  filled  with  disgust  for  the 
world,  he  withdraws  from  it  and  becomes  a  hermit  like  his  father. 
We  cannot  help  thinking  that  Grimmelshausen  need  not  have 
made  his  hero  bid  farewell  to  the  world  in  the  language  of  a 
Spanish  Mendicant  friar,  and  might  have  found  some  better  pro- 
vision for  him  than  a  hut  in  the  forest.  And  it  soon  appears  that 


Ch.  x.]  The  Novel.  389 

even  as  a  hermit  he  is  not  to  find  rest,  but  is  to  be  forced  into 
action  again.  . 

Grimmelshausen  wrote  many  novels  and  other  works  before  and 

after  '  Simplicissimus.'     He  created  the  character  of 

G-rimmels- 

'Courasche,'  a  woman  who  is  the  wife  of  a  cavalry-  hausen's 
captain,  a  captain  of  infantry,  a  lieutenant,  a  sutler,  other 
a  musketeer,  and  finally  a  gypsy.  He  introduced  to 
the  public  the  'curious  young  scapegrace'  (seltsamer 
Springinsfeld}  who  from  a  bold  soldier  has  sunk  down  to  a  crafty 
beggar  and  vagabond.  He  told  the  story  of  the  first  sluggard 
(Barenhauter),  who  by  an  agreement  with  the  devil  might  not  for 
seven  years  cut  his  hair  and  beard,  wash  his  face  and  hands  or 
blow  his  nose,  and  had  to  use  for  cloak  and  bed  the  skin  of  a  bear 
slain  by  himself.  He  described  the  degraded  conditions  of  family- 
life  among  the  peasants  and  townspeople  after  the  war.  He 
uttered  warnings  against  foreign  military  service,  especially  the 
French.  He  attacked  exaggerated  purism,  and  also  the  unneces- 
sary use  of  foreign  words  in  the  German  language.  In  reading 
his  works  we  are  often  reminded  of  Hans  Sachs  and  other  satirists 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  only  that  Grimmelshausen  possesses  the 
artistic  sense  which  we  missed  so  much  in  those  older  writers ;  in 
place  of  doggerel  verses  we  have  here  a  clear,  vigorous,  and  fluent 
prose. 

The  influence  of  Moscherosch  and  Grimmelshausen  is  clearly 
discernible  in  the  novels  of  Christian  Weise,  which     Christian 
appeared  from  1671  to  1676,  but  the  tradition  of  the      Weise's 
sixteenth  century  is  still  more  prominent  in  them.       novels, 
The  writer  is  continually  seeking  an  opportunity  for  ' 

introducing  a  succession  of  fools  and  knaves,  after  the  manner  of 
Sebastian  Brand  and  Murner.  He  introduces  us  to  one  or  several 
travellers  who  are  journeying  to  discover  the  three  greatest  fools  in 
the  world,  or  at  another  time  to  find  the  three  wisest  men  in  the 
world,  or  yet  again  to  study  the  effects  of  that  impudence  which 
leads  men  to  grasp  at  what  is  not  their  due.  There  is  no  lack  of 
comic  characters,  and  of  amusing  scenes  in  these  writings  of 
Weise's,  and  his  didactic  purpose  does  not  prevent  him  from  being 
very  entertaining. 


39°  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

In  adopting  the  form  of  a  journey  for  his  story,  Weise  was  following 

a  fashion  at  that  time  much  in  vogue  in  European  literature.    In 

iphg        the  humorous  romances  frequent  change  of  scene  was 

journey-  much  favoured.  The  real  journey-romance,  a  de- 
romances.  SCendant  of  the  Odyssey,  could  lead  its  readers  to 
distant  countries,  could  bring  before  them  strange  men  and  strange 
customs,  and  could  spread  geographical  knowledge ;  or,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  could  be  made  a  voyage  imaginaire,  to  the  moon,  the 
stars,  the  centre  of  the  earth,  or  any  allegorical  land  of  fancy.  In 
both  these  forms  it  offered  a  convenient  thread  for  tales  and  satires, 
and  the  experiences  and  adventures  related  by  the  various  men 
whom  the  traveller  met  with  furnished  an  opportunity  for  dragging 
in  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth.  German  writers  cultivated  the 
journey-romance  in  all  its  forms,  good  and  bad.  Even  when 
wishing  to  describe  their  own  country,  they  bring  a  foreigner  on 
paul  the  scene,  who  demands  information  about  the  state 
Winkier's  of  the  country,  its  manners,  and  its  people.  Thus,  in 
•Edeimann'  his  'Nobleman'  (1697),  Paul  Winkler  actually  brings 

^  ''  a  Dutchman  to  Breslau  in  order  to  gain  an  oppor- 
tunity of  painting  the  Silesian  nobility  from  the  life,  and  of  inter- 
larding his  description  with  endless  and  wearisome  discourses  on 
all  sorts  of  out-of-the-way  topics. 

The  journey-romance  in  its  most  outrageous  form  is  capitally 
turned  to  ridicule  in  '  Schelmuffsky,'  one  of  the  most  remark- 
Christian  a^'e  books  in  older  German  literature,  written  by  a 

Renter's  Leipzig  student,  Christian  Reuter,  in  1696.  It  is  a 
'  Scheimuff-  handful  of  lies  throughout,  but  may  be  considered  a 
''  classic  among  fictitious  histories,  excelling  even  the 
'  Finkenritter '  and  '  Mtinchhausen.'  Schelmuffsky,  who  relates  his 
own  experiences  like  Simplicius,  is  a  provincial  good-for-nothing, 
who  has  seen  nothing  of  the  world  and  knows  nothing  of  geography ; 
he  makes  loaded  waggons  drive  from  London  to  Hamburg,  he  places 
Venice  on  a  high  rocky  eminence,  where  there  is  great  dearth  of 
water,  and  furnishes  Rome  with  a  large  herring-fishery ;  yet  he 
represents  himself  to  have  seen  all  these  places,  and  to  have 
been  on  many  perilous  journeys  by  land  and  sea,  during  which, 
according  to  his  own  account,  he  made  a  great  impression  on 


Ch.  x.]  The  Novel.  391 

all  who  saw  him,  overcame  all  his  adversaries,  and  was  loved  by  all 
the  ladies.  Of  course  he  has  visited  the  East,  has  been  to  India  and 
seen  the  great  Mogul,  which  is  the  proper  thing  for  the  hero 
of  a  journey-romance,  and  he  has  also  duly  suffered  shipwreck 
and  fallen  into  the  hands  of  pirates.  He  was  able  to  speak  as 
soon  as  he  was  born,  and  he  has  performed  feats  of  which  the 
giant  Gargantua  himself  need  not  have  been  ashamed.  Many  of 
his  exaggerations  remind  us  of  the  swaggering  talk  of  the  soldier- 
braggarts  in  contemporary  comedy,  only  they  are  transferred  to  a 
lower  region,  and  the  bombast  is  replaced  by  a  tone  of  naivete  \ 
the  hero's  inventions  contain  nothing  that  might  not  have  come 
into  such  a  fellow's  head  when  he  was  once  set  off.  The  tone  of 
his  narrative,  the  constant  recurrence  of  the  adjuration,  '  The  devil 
take  me'  ('Der  Tebel  hohl  mer'\  and  the  frequent  assurance  that 
he  is  an  honest  man,  the  similarity  of  the  various  experiences  which 
he  relates,  the  repetition  of  certain  fixed  formulas  of  description, 
and  the  marked  vulgarity  of  language — all  this  is  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  supposed  character  of  the  narrator.  The  author  also 
shows  real  inventive  genius  in  the  creation  of  the  second  swaggerer, 
whom  Schelmuffsky  swears  friendship  with,  and  on  whose  lesser 
achievements  he  looks  down  with  good-natured  superiority,  and  also 
in  the  introduction  of  the  little  cousin,  who  won't  believe  a  word 
Schelmuffsky  says,  and  is  consequently  so  annoying  to  him. 
These  are  particular  merits  in  a  work,  which  as  a  whole  shows 
great  power  of  imagination  and  skilful  artistic  development 

But  the  journey-novel  could  not  be  stamped  out  even  by  the 
most  biting  ridicule.  On  the  contrary,  it  took  a  new  direction  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  assumed  a  form  which  the  inventive 
mind  of  Grimmelshausen  had  already  introduced  in  the  sequel  to 
his  great  novel  '  Simplicissimus.'  In  this  second  second  part 
part  Simplicius  starts  once  more  on  his  travels.  He  of '  Simpli- 
does  not  reach  his  goal,  Jerusalem,  but  is  taken  ois8imua- 
captive  by  Arabian  robbers  in  Egypt,  and  is  exhibited  for  a  time 
as  a  savage.  After  he  has  succeeded  in  effecting  his  escape,  he 
means  to  sail  round  the  South  of  Africa  to  St.  Jago  di  Compo- 
stella,  but  he  is  shipwrecked  close  to  a  beautiful  island;  there  he 
lives  at  first  with  his  companions,  then  alone,  and  cannot  be  per- 


39*  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

suaded  to  return  even  by  a  European  vessel  that  touches  the 
island. 

Grimmelshausen  has  here  introduced  an  idea  which  had  already 
played  a  certain  part  in  Shakspeare's  'Tempest/  and  which 
Defoe  made,  fifty  years  later,  the  centre  of  his  remarkable  work, 
'Robinson  Crusoe.'  But  the  idea  started  by  Grimmelshausen 
remained  dormant  until  it  came  before  the  public  in  a  new  form 

D  f  e'  from  England.  Daniel  Defoe's  '  Robinson  Crusoe ' 
'  Bobinson  appeared  in  1719;  it  was  at  once  translated  into 

Crusoe,'      various  languages,  and  it  continued  for  a  long  time  to 

17T0 

call  forth  numerous.imitations  in  Germany.     Foreign 

nations  as  well  as  native  districts  were  made  to  furnish  names  for 

German      a^  ^ese  Robinsons  or  Adventurers;  there  was  an 

imitations    Italian,  French,  Dutch,  Norwegian,  Saxon,  Silesian, 

of  Defoe's    Thuringian,  Swabian,  Brandenburg,  and   Palatinate 
work. 

Robinson,  a   Swiss,    Danish,  Dresden,  and   Leipzig 

Adventurer.  The  most  celebrated  achievement  of  this  literature 
of  Robinsonades,  which  was  continued  down  into  the  age  of 
Frederick  the  Great,  was  a  four-volume  story,  which  appeared 
'Die  insei  between  I73I  an^  i743»  and  was  called  '  The  Island 
Pelsen-  of  Felsenburg,'  after  the  scene  of  the  narrative.  It 
burg,'  was  written  by  Johann  Gottfried  Schnabel,  court-agent 
and  newswriter  to  Count  Stolberg.  His  literary 
apparatus  is  on  the  whole  the  same  as  that  employed  in  c  Sim- 
plicissimus,'  but  he  gives  still  greater  scope  to  ghostly  and  magical 
elements,  he  does  not  mind  repeating  himself,  and  he  makes  no 
attempt  to  introduce  any  higher  thoughts  into  his  fascinating  narra- 
tive of  changeful  incidents.  The  island  of  Felsenburg  is  supposed 
to  lie  somewhere  in  mid-ocean  beyond  St.  Helena.  It  is  an 
earthly  Paradise,  like  Simplicius'  last  habitation.  The  idea  of  the 
shipwrecked  people  who  land  there  and  of  their  doings  was 
evidently  suggested  by  Grimmelshausen's  work.  At  length  there 
remain  but  one  Adam  and  one  Eve  in  this  Paradise ;  Adam  is 
a  German  and  becomes  the  founder  of  a  great  race,  for  his  family 
and  subjects  are  increased  by  other  shipwrecked  people,  and  after- 
wards by  voluntary  immigrants.  He  rules  over  a  realm  of  peace, 
and  many  who  have  been  through  troubles  and  vicissitudes  in 


Ch.  x.]  The  Drama. 

Europe  find  happiness  and  rest  at  last  in  the  island  of  Felsenburg. 
Several  of  these  are  Germans,  and  all  of  them  are  made  to  relate 
their  experiences.  We  are  thus  introduced  to  clergymen,  soldiers, 
artisans,  whose  history  reflects  the  general  conditions  of  the  age 
and  acquaints  us  with  many  characteristics  of  German  life  in  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  citizens  of  this  happy 
island  seem  to  have  left  all  their  evil  passions  behind  them  in  their 
old  Fatherland,  but  they  have  not  got  rid  of  the  stilted  forms  of 
intercourse  and  the  conventional  phraseology  fashionable  in  Ger- 
many at  that  time.  An  elaborate  love-letter  seems  to  them  more 
poetical  than  a  simple  heart-felt  word.  But  differences  of  rank  and 
religion  never  form  barriers  of  separation  between  the  islanders,  and 
in  this  respect  they  represent  an  ideal  which  was  yet  far  from  its 
realisation  in  Germany  itself. 

THE  DRAMA. 

In  spite  of  the  fancies  and  superstitions  which  the  authors  of 
'  Simplicissimus '  and  of  the  '  Island  of  Felsenburg '  introduced 
into  their  works,  we  may  say,  on  the  whole,  that  the  enchantments 
and  fabulous  marvels,  which  played  so  great  a  part  in  old  romances 
like  '  Amadis/  were  banished  from  the  modern  novel  in  deference 
to  the  demands  of  a  more  enlightened  age.  But  marvel  and  magic 
found  a  refuge  in  the  Drama  of  this  period.  The  opera  and  the 
burlesque  afforded  full  scope  for  a  lively  imagination,  and  allowed 
the  author  to  disregard  all  laws  of  probability.  The  opera  and  the 
burlesque  dominated  the  stage  at  this  time.  The  opera,  like  the 
fantastic  style  of  writing,  derived  its  strength  from  Italy ;  the 
burlesque  was  founded  on  a  popular  basis,  but  was  also  open 
to  Italian  influence. 

The  Opera  was  a  true  product  of  the  Renaissance.     It  first  saw 
the  light  in  Florence,  where  it  sprang  from  the  wish     Develop- 
to  revive  the  Greek  drama  in  its  original  form.     The  ment  of  the 
chorus  had  long  existed  in  the  drama ;  the  Recitative       °Pera- 
was  now  added  to  it,  and  this  intermediate  between  melody  and 
speech  was  thought  to  be  the  dramatic  declamation  used  by  the 
Greeks  and  Romans.     The  aria  was  next  added  as  an  artistic 
necessity,  to   relieve   the  monotony  of  the   recitative ;  then   the 


394  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.           [ch.  x. 

chorus  began  to  take  part  in  the  action,  and  the  instruments  were 
made  to  contribute  characteristic  colouring  to  it ;    dancing,  rich 
decorations,  spectacular  effects,  and  frequent  changes  of  scene 
were  added  to  attract  the  eye,  and  the  drama,  thus  improved  and 
embellished,  was  used  to  impart  new  glory  to  grand  court-festivals. 
The  first  opera,  '  Daphne,'  with  text  by  Rinuccini  and  music  by 
Peri,  was  produced  in  1594  or  1595  in  a  private  house 
'  Daphne,' '  ^n  Florence  ;  the  second, '  Euridice,'  also  by  Rinuccini 
performed    and  Peri,  was  performed  at  the  ducal  Court  of  Florence 
m  1 6°°>  on  ^e  occasion  of  the  marriage  of  Henry 
IV.  of  France  with  Mary  de  Medicis.     Opitz  made  a 
German  version  of  the  text  of '  Daphne,'  and  Heinrich  Schiitz,  the 
greatest  German  composer  of  the  seventeenth  century,  wrote  new 
music  for  it.     This  first  German  opera  was  produced 
at  Torgau  on  the  i3th  of  April,  1627,  at  the  court  of 
1  Daphne '    the  Elector  John  George  I.,  to  celebrate  the  marriage 
produced  at  of  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  with  a  Saxon  princess. 
1627U       Ovid,  the  teacher  of  love,  sings  the  prologue,  and 
shepherds  form  the  chorus.     Apollo  kills  the  dragon 
Python  and  mocks  at  Cupid,  who  resolves  to  revenge  himself  and 
show  his  power  over  the  god ;  Daphne  enflames  the  passion  of 
Apollo,  flies  from  him,  and  is  transformed  before  the  eyes  of  the 
audience  into  a  laurel  tree.     Shepherds  and  nymphs  then  sing  the 
praise  of  the  laurel  tree  and  of  the  Saxon  rue-plant,  and  the  opera 
terminates  with  an  anticipation  of  the  much-desired  peace. 

The  protracted  war  was  unfavourable  to  the  development  of 
the  opera.     It  was  not  till  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century 
The         that  operas  began  to  appear  more  frequently  at  the 
Opera  in     court-festivals,  and  from   that   time   their   popularity 
Germany,     steadily  increased.    Love  remained  their  chief  theme ; 
to  set  love-songs  to  soft  music  was  the  highest  aim  of  the  early  opera- 
composers,  and  there  were  some  German  poets  who  declared  the 
opera  to  be  the  noblest  branch  of  poetry.     Andreas  Gryphius  and 
Prevalence   many  others  wrote  German  texts  for  operas.     But  for 
of  Italian     the  most  part  Italian  operas  were  performed  at  Ger- 
Opera.       man  courtS)  jn  the  Italian  language  and  by  Italian 
troupes ;  and  if  there  chanced  to  be  any  German  singers  or  com- 


Ch.  x.]  The  Drama.  395 

posers  among  them,  they  were  sure  to  have  had  an  Italian  training. 
Vienna,  Munich,  and  Dresden  were  the  most  important  colonies 
of  the  Italian  opera ;  the  towns  emulated  the  princely  courts  in 
cultivating  it,  and  it  was  only  in  Hamburg  that  the  original  Ger- 
man opera  attained  any  true  and  lasting  success.  Qerman 
Between  1678  and  1738  more  than  two  hundred  and  Opera  in 

fifty  operas  were  performed  there.     In  the  seventeenth    Hamburg, 
r    i  -H        v    •  1678-1738 

century  some  of  the  operas  were  still  religious  in 

character,  a  continuation  of  the  older  Mysteries;  otherwise  they 
were  mostly  drawn  from  mythology  or  history,  or  else  they  were 
pastoral  plays.  There  was  little  modern  or  patriotic  about  these 
operas,  and  at  last  they  became  almost  exclusively  mere  spectacular 
pieces  or  farces.  Among  the  musical  composers,  the  light  but  varied 
and  fertile  talent  of  Reinhard  Reiser  was  the  most  remarkable.  The 
writers  of  texts  were,  for  the  most  part,  quite  unequal  to  their  task ; 
their  models  were  Italian  libretti,  which  they  deteriorated  rather  than 
improved.  At  last  they  contented  themselves  with  simply  adopting 
Italian  arias,  and  in  1740  an  Italian  troupe  established  itself  in 
Hamburg. 

The  influence  of  the  opera,  the  delight  in  splendid  accessories, 
decoration  and  machinery,    made  itself  felt    in  the     innuence 
spoken   drama  also.      The   artistic   drama   and   the       of  the 

popular  drama  stood  at  first  in  opposition  to  each     Opera  on 

.        .  the  Drama, 

other,    but    gradually    a    rapprochement    took    place 

between  them;  the  popular  drama  influenced  the  artistic  drama, 
and  both  were  affected  by  the  opera.  The  artistic  dramas  were 
written  by  scholars,  and  acted  by  students  and  school-boys. 
The  popular  drama  was  fostered  by  wandering  actors,  who  drew 
materials  for  their  plays  from  all  sources,  altering  them  as  they 
pleased. 

The  Silesian  Andreas  Gryphius  was  the  originator  of  the  German 
artistic  drama.  His  countrymen  Lohenstein  and  The  artistic 
Hallmann  tried  to  outdo  him  in  tragedy,  and  carried  drama, 

his  manner  to  extremes.     They  revel  in  executions,  _  JT5  }u.8' 

jjohenstein, 

prison-scenes,  ghosts,  and  the  cruelties  of  torture;         and 
the  horrors  of  Shakspeare's  '  Titus  Andronicus '  and    Hallmann. 
of  similar  English  plays  are  continued  in  their  works.     Strong 


396  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [ch.  X. 

realistic  effects  are  combined  with  bombastic  dialogue,  moving  in 
stiff  Alexandrines. 

Christian  Weise  occupies  a  far  higher  place  as  a  dramatic  writer 
Christian  than  Lohenstein  or  Hallmann.  He  cultivated  all 
"Weise's  branches  of  the  drama.  He  too  was  influenced  by 
dramas.  Gryphius  and  by  the  Opera,  but  like  Gryphius  him- 
self he  also  learnt  much  from  a  direct  study  of  the  popular 
stage.  Like  Gryphius  he  mingles  comic  and  tragic  elements 
in  his  plays,  and  was  indebted  to  Shakspeare  for  a  few  of  his 
subjects.  He  employed  prose  almost  exclusively,  and  aimed  at 
making  his  dialogue  rapid  and  dramatic ;  it  is  only  in  moments  of 
great  emotion  that  his  style  rises  above  the  ordinary  level,  and  on 
such  occasions  it  generally  degenerates  into  bombast.  Weise 
seeks  to  produce  rapid  changes  of  mood  in  his  audience  by  means 
of  perplexing  entanglements  and  surprising  solutions  of  difficulties. 
He  wished  to  give  faithful  pictures  of  real  life,  and  hence  in  his 
plays  the  High-German  speech  is  reserved  for  the  princely  char- 
acters, and  all  the  others  speak  in  dialect.  The  wealth  and  facility 
of  his  invention  are  marvellous,  but  he  did  not  take  the  trouble  to 
polish  and  mould  his  works  thoroughly.  He  wrote  more  than 
fifty  dramas,  and  had  them  nearly  all  performed  by  his  pupils, 
when  he  was  Rector  in  Zittau,  from  1679  to  J688  and  1702  to 
1705.  He  also  wrote  Biblical  dramas  full  of  realistic  elements 
drawn  from  contemporary  life,  but  he  avoided  New  Testament 
subjects,  and  he  never  introduced  the  Devil  on  the  stage;  the 
kind  of  play  in  which  that  character  flourished  was  evidently 
dying  out  at  this  time.  His  historical  plays,  in  which  he  seems 
to  have  a  predilection  for  revolutions  or  the  fall  of  favourites, 
remind  us  very  much  of  the  tragedies  of  the  Silesian  school, 
without  coming  up  to  them  in  horrors.  The  exceeding  stiffness 
of  the  serious  parts  is  somewhat  compensated  for  by  excellent 
popular  scenes,  delicious  humour  and  a  few  situations  of  strong 
human  interest,  into  which  the  author  seems  to  have  thrown 
his  whole  sympathy.  In  his  original  dramas  Weise  began  with 
loosely  connected  satirical  pictures,  and  ended  with  concise  delinea- 
tion of  life  among  the  lower  middle  classes.  He  passed  from  farce 
to  comedy,  but  in  the  latter  he  is  often  stiff,  loquacious,  and  dull. 


Ch.  x.]  The  Drama.  397 

Christian  Weise  found  followers  both  in  schools  and  elsewhere. 
The  school-drama  in  general  was  still  in  vogue,  though     Dramatic 
not  so  much  as  it  had  been.     The  Jesuits  and  other    spectacles 
religious  orders  got  up  splendid  dramatic  represen-    in  schools- 
tations  in  their  schools  and  colleges,  and  tried  to  satisfy  the  love  of 
gorgeous  spectacles,  while  at  the  same  time  promoting  piety.     But 
their  efforts  contributed  nothing  to  the  development  of  the  drama 
as  a  branch  of  literature. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  till  about  1730, 
the  spoken  drama  disappeared  almost  completely  from  printed  litera- 
ture, being  entirely  supplanted  by  the  text-books  of  the  favourite 
opera.  The  popular  dramas  too  continued  to  enjoy  T^O 
the  same,  or  even  greater,  favour  than  before,  but  like  popular 
the  school-dramas  they  were  not  printed,  except  per-  d**111^ 
haps  an  outline  of  the  plot  on  theatre-programmes.  Like  the  poetry 
of  the  mediaeval  gleemen,  they  existed  solely  in  manuscript  or  in 
the  memory  of  the  wandering  actors.  The  manuscripts  too  were 
sometimes  incomplete,  giving  mere  stage-directions,  and  leaving  free 
space  for  improvisation  side  by  side  with  fixed  parts.  And  these 
manuscripts,  being  only  intended  to  help  in  the  production  of  plays, 
like  the  decorations  and  costumes,  were  like  them  worn  out  and  lost, 
so  that  the  popular  drama  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries, 
like  the  popular  poetry  of  the  Middle  Ages,  is  wrapt  in  obscurity, 
and  only  insignificant  and  chance  fragments  of  it  have  come  down 
to  us.  The  comedians,  as  we  have  noticed,  wrote  their  own  plays, 
and  had  no  scruple  in  seizing  on  other  people's  property ;  foreign 
and  native  literature,  the  artistic  drama  and  the  school-plays,  operas 
and  romances  were  all  made  to  supply  them  with  materials.  But 
they  arranged  this  material  according  to  their  own  requirements, 
and  with  reference  to  their  favourite  effects,  and  to  the  likings  of 
their  audience.  They  handled  their  materials  in  the  same  way  as 
the  Strassburg  playwrights  about  the  year  1600  handled  the  Ajax 
of  Sophocles;  they  liked  to  represent  everything  in  j 

detail  on  the  stage,  more  especially  anything  horrible, 
and  to  leave  nothing  to  mere  narrative.     They  loved  to  introduce 
a  bloodthirsty  tyrant  into  their  plays,  a  Nero  or  a  Domitian,  who 
might  be  made  to  rage  and  rant  to  any  extent,  and  who  would 


398  The  Dawn  of  Modern  Literature.  [Ch.  x. 

furnish  an  opportunity  for  all  kinds  of  horrors.  Such  tyrants 
generally  have  evil  counsellors  and  flatterers  by  their  side;  they 
meet  with  conscientious  opposition,  and  their  tyranny  calls  forth 
martyrs  and  revolutionary  spirits ;  they  were  the  favourite  heroes 
both  of  the  popular  dramatists  and  of  their  more  learned  colleagues. 
Tragedies  treating  of  tyrants,  or  of  kings,  princes  and  other  public 
characters,  always  formed  the  main  bulk  of  the  repertoire  of  the 
wandering  comedians ;  they  were  the  chief  event  in  every  theatrical 
representation  at  this  time,  and  were  relieved  by  comic  inter- 
ludes or  by  a  farce  at  the  end.  Later  on  they  became  notorious 
under  the  name  of  'chief  and  state  actions'  (^Haupt-  und  Siaats- 
actionen '). 

It  seemed  for  a  short  time  as  if  the  German  stage  was  to  be 
ennobled  by  French  influence  in  the  seventeenth  century,  as  if  the 
splendid  productions  of  Moliere  were  to  point  the  German  dramatic 

authors  to  higher  aims.     As  early  as  1670.  three  years 
Transla- 
tions of      before  Moliere's  death,  five  of  his  comedies  were  pub- 

Moliere,     lished   in  German,  and   in  1694  there   appeared   a 

1670  and     German   translation   of  his   collective   prose  works. 
1694 

From   1685  to  1692  a  troupe  of  Court  players  was 

kept  in  Dresden,  of  whom  Magister  Velthen  was  the  leading  spirit; 
these  comedians  had  various  plays  of  Moliere's  in  their  repertoire. 
There  was  also  a  plentiful  supply  of  translations  of  French 
tragedies;  several  of  these  appeared  in  Brunswick  between  1691 
and  1699,  and  were  represented  at  the  Court  Theatre,  under  the 
patronage  of  Duke  Anton  Ulrich.  But  with  this  exception  the 
regular  drama  found  but  little  support  at  the  German  courts,  and  it 

French  was  on  tne'r  ^avour  tnat  ^  chiefly  depended  at  this 
influence  time.  The  French  fashion  had  soon  to  yield  to  the 
yields  to  Italian,  for  the  latter  supplied  that  most  favourite 

Italian.      eiement  of  the  German  popular  stage :  the  clown. 

Already  in  the  German  popular  drama  of  the  sixteenth  century 
The  clown  tne  f°°l  na^  sometimes  been  introduced  as  standing 

of  the       jester,  and  even  then  the  jokes  which  he  had  to  make 

drama>  were  often  left  to  his  own  invention.  The  English 
comedians  transplanted  their  clown  to  the  German  stage,  and  the 
character  was  at  once  adopted  by  Jacob  Ayrer  and  Duke  Heimich 


Ch.  x.]  The  Drama.  399 

Julius  of  Brunswick  in  their  plays.  From  that  time  forward,  the  clown 
became  more  and  more  the  most  necessary  member  of  the  wander- 
ing troupes  of  actors;  he  attracted  the  largest  audiences,  for  he  was 
the  representative  of  low  comedy.  He  was  the  heir  of  all  the 
popular  comic  characters  in  German  life  and  literature ;  there  was 
a  bit  of  Morold  about  him,  and  a  bit  of  Eulenspiegel ;  he  was  a 
fool,  a  Grobianus,  a  poor  devil,  and  the  last  metamorphosis  of  the 
wandering  gleeman.  He  was  servant,  messenger,  spy,  intrigant, 
and  conjuror,  was  dressed  in  motley  and  provided  with  a  cracking 
whip,  like  the  old  gleeman.  He  was  obscene  and  vulgar,  a  great 
eater  and  drinker,  a  braggart  and  a  coward.  He  was  the  hero  of 
farce  and  the  jester  of  tragedy,  and  he  even  forced  his  way  into  the 
Hamburg  Opera.  He  gained  the  heart  of  Christian  Weise,  and  was 
only  discarded  in  the  comedies  written  at  the  close  of  his  career. 
He  went  under  different  names  at  different  periods,  l  Ptckelhering,' 
'Harlequin,'  and  ' Hanswurst '  being  the  most  frequent.  Pickel- 
hering  was  the  comic  character  of  the  English  comedians,  and 
flourished  throughout  the  seventeenth  century,  appearing  even  in 
Christian  Weise's  works.  Harlequin  was  derived  from  the  Italian 
Arlechino,  a  character  of  ancient  renown  in  the  improvised 
Italian  popular  comedy.  As  early  as  the  fifteenth  century, 
Italian  comedy  exercised  a  great  influence  on  other 
nations,  and  in  the  seventeenth  century  it  attained  an  come(jy 
international  popularity.  In  Paris  there  existed  an  in  France 
Italian  theatre  which  rivalled  Moliere's,  and  from  and 
which  he  derived  some  suggestions  for  his  plays, 
The  first  Italian  troupe  came  to  Germany  about  1670, 
and  o  course  brought  their  Harlequin  with  them.  The  Paris 
troupe  later  on  began  to  act  in  French;  the  pieces  which  they 
acted,  or  outlines  of  them,  were  collected  in  print  after  1694,  and 
the  German  actors  made  frequent  use  of  them.  The  Italian  farce 
found  a  favourable  reception  everywhere,  but  there  was  no  place 
where  it  struck  such  deep  roots  as  in  Vienna,  the  The  stage 
town  where  farce  and  every  kind  of  coarse  jesting  had  in  Vienna, 
flourished  vigorously  since  the  Middle  Ages.  As  'Hans- 

WUTSt  * 

early  as  1708  a  German  theatre  was  established  in  the 

Imperial  capital,  and  its  founder  Joseph  Stranitzky,  a  Silesian, 


400  The  Dawn  of  M.odern  Literature.  [Ch.  X. 

made  extensive  use  of  the  characters  and  plots  of  Italian  farce :  he 
himself  acted  Harlequin,  to  whom  he  gave  the  old  German  name 
of  Hans-Wurst,  a  title  borne  occasionally  by  the  clown  of  the 
earlier  drama.  He  made  him  appeal  more  directly  to  the  Viennese. 
His  Hanswurst  came  from  Salzburg,  just  as  the  Italian  Arlechino 
came  from  Bergamo,  and  both  were  made  to  speak  in  their  native 
dialect.  As  Arlechino  had  his  own  special  costume,  made  of 
triangular  patches  of  cloth,  so  Hanswurst  always  appeared  as  a 
peasant  with  the  characteristic  green  pointed  hat. 

Hanswurst  and  his  kindred  are  a  characteristic  production  of  the 
period  about  1600,  and  unfortunately  this  character  of  the  clown 
Low  level    committed  the  popular  drama  for  ever  to  the  level  of 
of  the       that  period.     Literary  influence  could  not  succeed  in 
popular      effecting  any  change  in  this  leading  character,  and 
nothing  was  able  to  gain  any  footing  in  the  popular  plays 
that  did  not  harmonise  with  Hanswurst  or  bring  him  into  stronger 
relief.     The  spectacular  element  was  readily  increased ;  the  arts  of 
scenic  decoration,  enchantments,  flying  machines  and  transforma- 
tions found  favour  on  the  popular  stage  as  well  as  in  the  opera.   The 
bombast  too  of  the  artistic  tragedy,  after  the  Lohenstein  and  Hall- 
mann  style,  established  itself  in  the  popular  plays ;  the  Alexandrine 
and  the  short  dialogue  alternating  in  single  lines  were  introduced 
side  by  side  with  prose,  and  in  verse  as  in  prose  a  stream  of  high- 
sounding  words  and  well-worn  images  was  poured  out  to  a  delighted 
audience,  mingled  with  the  filthy  jokes  of  Hanswurst. 

Such  was  the  state  of  the  German  stage  when  Gottsched  ap- 

Gottsched'a  Peared  on  the  scene,  and  endeavoured  to  set  up  the 

reform  of    French  classical  drama  as  the  only  authorized  model. 

the  Drama.  The  opera  and  Hanswurst  seemed  to  him  the  worst 

enemies  which  good  taste  had  to  fight  against.     Hence  he  greeted 

with  applause  Pradon's  very  mediocre  play  of  '  Regulus,'  which  was 

translated  from  French  and  German  at  Brunswick  at  the  command 

influence  of  °^  Duke  Anton  Ulrich,  and  was  performed   by  the 

French      Hoffmann  troupe  in  Leipzig  in  1725.    The  Brunswick 

classical      translations  formed  the  basis  of  a  new  repertoire  for  the 

T^i*ft.mft. 

regular  drama,  and  the  Neuber  company,  which  sprang 
from  the  Hoffmann  troupe  in  1727,  made  it  its  chief  business  to 


Ch.  x.]  The  Drama.  401 

promote  the  cause  of  the  artistic  drama  founded  on  French  models. 
These  actors  enthusiastically  took  up  Gottsched's  ideas,  gave  up  the 
'  chief  actions '  and  '  State  actions/  confined  Harlequin  to  the  realm 
of  farce,  and  finally  banished  him  from  the  stage  altogether. 

Gottsched  made  the  German  stage  once  more  dependent  on 
German  literature ;  that  was  his  great  merit  in  connection  with  the 
German  drama.  Unfortunately,  he  did  not  get  beyond  preaching 
imitation  of  the  French,  and  practising  it  himself;  he  did  not  think  of 
rescuing  and  improving  the  available  materials  and  workmanship  of 
the  popular  plays,  and  thus  preserving  the  national  character  of  the 
German  drama.  He  broke  entirely  with  the  past,  and  in  so  doing 
impoverished  the  German  drama  for  the  present  and  the  future. 
He  disdained  reform,  and  undertook  his  revolution  in  the  cause  of 
a  false  ideal. 


END  OF  VOL.  L 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


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I 


